Fantasy
There is a tune for which I’d freely trade
All Rossini, all Mozart and all Weber,[1]
Archaic tune, faded fast and sepulchral
Which for me alone offers secret allure.
Now, each time that I happen to hear it,
Two centuries my spirit revives;
Tis under Louis Thirteenth; I envision outspread
A verdant slope, which the sunset ambers.
Then a brick-built manor with stony corners,
With stained-glass windows of roseate colours,
Girt in vast parks, a rivulet there
Rinsing its feet, which slides among flowers;
Then a lady, at her lofty window,
Blond with darkling eyes, her apparel antique,
Whom, in another existence perchance,
I’ve seen before . . . – of whom I remind myself!
NOTE
[1] Pronounce it “Webure”.
(Nerval’s original footnote instructed the reader to pronounce it as “Webre”, to rhyme with “funèbre”, sepulchral. This is as close as I could come to reproducing the joke in a free verse translation.)
There is a tune for which I’d freely trade
All Rossini, all Mozart and all Weber,[1]
Archaic tune, faded fast and sepulchral
Which for me alone offers secret allure.
Now, each time that I happen to hear it,
Two centuries my spirit revives;
Tis under Louis Thirteenth; I envision outspread
A verdant slope, which the sunset ambers.
Then a brick-built manor with stony corners,
With stained-glass windows of roseate colours,
Girt in vast parks, a rivulet there
Rinsing its feet, which slides among flowers;
Then a lady, at her lofty window,
Blond with darkling eyes, her apparel antique,
Whom, in another existence perchance,
I’ve seen before . . . – of whom I remind myself!
NOTE
[1] Pronounce it “Webure”.
(Nerval’s original footnote instructed the reader to pronounce it as “Webre”, to rhyme with “funèbre”, sepulchral. This is as close as I could come to reproducing the joke in a free verse translation.)
