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lyrics

Non, Dieu, éclair qui flamboie dans le triangle symbolique, n’est point le chiffre tracé sur les lèvres de la sagesse humaine !

Non, l’amour, sentiment naïf et chaste qui se voile de pudeur et de fierté au sanctuaire du cœur, n’est point cette tendresse cavalière qui répand les larmes de la coquetterie par les yeux du masque de l’innocence !

Non, la gloire, noblesse dont les armoiries ne se vendirent jamais, n’est pas la savonnette à vilain qui s’achète, au prix du tarif, dans la boutique d’un journaliste !

Et j’ai prié, et j’ai aimé, et j’ai chanté, poète pauvre et souffrant ! Et c’est en vain que mon cœur déborde de foi, d’amour et de génie !

C’est que je naquis aiglon avorté ! L’œuf de mes destinées, que n’ont point couvé les chaudes ailes de la prospérité, est aussi creux, aussi vide que la noix dorée de l’Égyptien.

Ah ! l’homme, dis-le-moi, si tu le sais, l’homme, frêle jouet, gambadant suspendu aux fils des passions, ne serait-il qu’un pantin qu’use la vie et que brise la mort ?

.......................................

No, God, a lightning blazing in the symbolic triangle, is not the number traced on the lips of human wisdom!

No, love, a naive and chaste feeling, which is shrouded in modesty and pride in the sanctuary of the heart, is not that cavalier tenderness which spreads the tears of coquetry through the eyes of the mask of innocence!

No, the glory, the nobility of which the coat of arms never came, is not the naughty soap that one buys, at the price of the tariff, in the shop of a journalist!

And I pray, and I loved, and I sang, poor and suffering poet! And it is in vain that my heart overflows with faith, love and genius.

It is that I was born an aborted eagle! The egg of my destinies, which has not been hatched by the warm wings of prosperity, is as hollow, as empty as the golden walnut of the Egyptian.

Ah! Man—tell me, if you know it—the man, frail toy, frolicking suspended to the sons of passions; would he not be but a puppet worn out by life and shattered by death?

credits

from Gaspard de la Nuit (2019) for soprano and string quartet, released June 4, 2019

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Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more

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