"POEM" ["LA BONNE CHANSON"]: Op. 8
In 1901 Loeffler wrote, as a companion piece to his Villanelle du Diable (see the following pages), an "aubade" for orchestra inspired by Paul Verlaine's ecstatic lines addressed to his bride, Mathilde Mauté, and printed in the volume of poems entitled La Bonne Chanson.[94] Loeffler's paraphrase was originally entitled Avant que tu ne t'en ailles, after the opening line of the poem; later this was changed to La Bonne Chanson; the title finally chosen by the composer is the French of that given above—Poème.
Verlaine's poem, in English prose, is as follows:
"Before you fade and disappear, pale morning-star—a thousand quails call in the thyme—
"Turn towards the poet, whose eyes brim with love—the lark mounts skyward with the day—
"Turn your face which the dawn drowns in its blue—what joy among ripe wheat-fields!—
"Make my thought shine yonder—far off, O so far!—The dew shines brightly on the hay—
"In the sweet dream wherein my love still sleeping stirs—Quick! be quick! for, lo, the golden sun!" [95]
Loeffler's tonal translation of Verlaine's poem is in spirit a rhapsody, in form "a fantastic kind of thème varié" (theme with variations), as he describes it, "the theme appearing even in canonic form and in inversion."[96] The music opens with a passage suggestive of the opening verse of the poem: harp, glockenspiel,[97] and strings evoke the thought of the early dawn, the fading and disappearing star. The strings sing the principal theme. After an allegro passage (some will find here the thought of the ascending lark), there is a return to the serener mood of the opening; antique cymbals hint at the sparkle of the dew on the hay. The music keeps pace with the mounting eagerness and desire of the poet-lover; the excitement grows, reaching its climax in an effulgent outburst of the full orchestra, announcing the rising sun.