Julos Beaucarne - In the memory of roses

Original Title: "De mémoire de rose"
Year: 1975

In the memory of roses
Never has a garderner been seen dieing
If just a pause
Can't be sufficient for you
Madam, leave
The time stretch
Without cursing it, be patient
Let yourself slide in the light wind
Patience, be patient

If love flies away
Blame only yourself
You ran away from school
For the bed of a King
If her white veil
Is no more than a fog
Do not hang yourself from the branch
As soon as it'll be dark
Do not hang yourself from the branch
As soon as it'll be dark, because

In the memory of roses
Never has a garderner been seen dieing
If just a pause
Can't be sufficient for you
Madam, leave
The time stretch
Without cursing it, be patient
Let yourself slide in the light wind
Patience, be patient

Keep deep inside
Deep inside yourself
A void, a place
Behind the feasts
Where to lay your head
In the wind of the evening
Rock those old dreams
Even if it's dark
Rock those old dreams
Even if it's dark, because

In the memory of roses
Never has a garderner been seen dieing
If just a pause
Can't be sufficient for you
Madam, leave
The time stretch
Without cursing it, be patient
Let yourself slide in the light wind
Patience, be patient

Julos Beaucarne - Elskamp - Oh Claire Suzanne Adolphine

Text: Max Elskamp
Year: 1967

My father discovered the poem by Max Elskamp and directly went over to Julos so that he'd put it in music as it was about their hometown. They both spent the night creating the song. Julos ended up publishing an extended play with four Max Elskamp poems.

Oh Claire Suzanne Adolphine
Oh my mother from the Ecaussinnes
Now so far away who is asleep
Do you remember the summer days ?

Over there in August, when we were going
To visit our parents
In their castle of Belle-Tête²
Built in stones from our region

And who then made celebration
To you, their daughter, as well as to us
In this sweet Wallonia
Of clear summer, over there, in Hainaut

Where we were hearing some harmony
Like a voice coming from above
The noise of the cisels on the stones
And who sang under the hammers

Like bells ringing in the air
Or sea in the distance raising her waters
While like thunders
Were passing the trains under the elm trees

Oh my mother from the Ecaussines
It's your blood which speaks in me
And my soul which confides itself
In You, and of love, and of faith

Because you were to me like Mary
Even though I am not Jesus
And when you were gone
I knew I had lost everything

Oh Claire Suzanne Adolphine
Oh my mother from the Ecaussinnes
Now so far away who is asleep
Do you remember the summer days ?

²Belle-Tête would mean "Pretty head" although I couldn't find trace of such a castle

Julos Beaucarne - Victor Hugo - I was not thinking about Rose

Original Title : "Je ne songeais pas à Rose"
Text: Victor Hugo (1856)
Year: 1969

I was not thinking about Rose
Rose came with me to the woods
We were talking about something
But I don't remember about what

I was cold like the marbles
I was walking mindlessly
I was talking of the flowers of the trees
Her eye seemed to imply : "After ?"

Dew was offering its pearls
The thicket its parasols
I was going forward, I was listening to the blackbirds
And Rose the nightingales

I, sixteen years old, and the morose look
Her twenty, her eyes were shining
The nightingales were singing Rose
And the blackbirds were whistling at me

Rose, straight on her hips
Raised her beautiful trembling arm
To grab a blackberry from the branches.
I did not see her white arm

Some water was running, fresh and hollow,
On the velvet mosses
And the loving nature
Was sleeping in the big deaf woods

Rose untied her shoe
And put, with an ingenuous look,
Her pretty little foot in the pure water
I did not see her naked foot

I did not know what to tell her
I was following her in the woods
Seeing her smile sometimes
And sigh a few times

I only saw she was beautiful
When coming out of the big deaf woods
- So be it, let's not think about it no more ! She said
- So be it, let's not think about it no more ! She said
I'm still thinking about it since

Léo Ferré - Verlaine - My familiar dream

Original title: "Mon rêve familier"
Text: Paul Verlaine
Year: 1964

I often make that strange and penetrating dream
Of an unknown woman and whom I love and who loves me
And who is, everytime, not entirely the same
Nor quite another and who loves me and understands me

Because she understands me and my heart transparent
For her alone, alas!, stops being a problem.
For her alone, and the sweatiness of my pallid forehead
She only knows how to refresh them while crying.

Is she brown haired, blond or redhaired? I don't know.
Her name? I remember it's sweet and resonant,
Like the ones of the loved ones who have been exiled by life.

Her gaze is alike to the gaze of the statues
And, for her voice, distant, and calm, and deep, it has
the inflexion of the dearest voices who went silent.

Julos Beaucarne's version: