Songe (Dream): Maurice Bouchor and Mel Bonis

Have you ever felt as though a single moment—gazing into someone's eyes, listening to a passage of music, looking at a landscape—transports you to another realm? Maurice Bouchor's poem is about just this kind of experience, an experience that the French composer Mel Bonis transforms into a magical sound world that deftly blends Romanticism and Impressionism.

The episode features a recording of the song by Hélène Guilmette and Matin Dubé, from an album called L'Heure Rose.

For more information about Mel Bonis, go to the Mel Bonis website, maintained by Christine Géliot. You can also learn more about her songs at my website Art Song Augmented.

Songe (an excerpt from Vers le pur amour)
by Maurice Bouchor

Guidé par de beaux yeux candides,
Dans ma barque féerique aux reflets d'argent fin,
Vers l'amour, je voudrais faire voile sans fin
Sur des rêves bleus et splendides,

Vers l'amour dont le souffle frais
Berce des champs de fleurs dans une île enchantée
Et qui, pour apaiser mon âme tourmentée,
M'ouvrira de saintes forêts.

Et plus tard, quand, loin de la terre,
O Viola ! Guérie des brûlantes langueurs,
Nous irons caresser les songes de nos coeurs
Dans l'île heureuse du mystère.

Dans le libre ciel des esprits,
Quand nous aurons quitté la nature mortelle,
Ne goûterons-nous pas une paix éternelle ?
Rêveusement, tu me souris.

———

Guided by beautiful, innocent eyes,
In my magic boat with reflections of fine silver,
Toward love I would like to sail endlessly
On blue and splendid dreams.

Toward love, whose fresh breath
Cradles fields of flowers in an enchanted island,
And which, to appease my tormented soul,
Will open holy forests to me. 

And later, far from the earth,
O Viola, cured of burning languor,
We will go to caress the dreams of our hearts
On the happy island of mystery.

In the free sky of the spirits,
When we have left our mortal nature,
Will we not taste eternal peace?
Dreamily, you smile at me.