The Widow's Song

Listen to The Birthday Massacre's Pins and Needles album here.

The cover art is by My Pet Skeleton. I love it and this pin here:

That widow reminds me of a poem by Paul Verlaine,

which he later turned into lyrics for Ernest Chausson.

They're both in French. Here's the English translations:

O Hearken To The Gentle Lay

O hearken to the gentle lay,

That only weeps that it may please; 

Discreet it is, and faint as breeze

That ripples o'er the moss in May.

The voice was known to you (and dear?),

But now the singer hides her face,

A widow veiled in desolate lace,

Yet haughtily her grief doth bear.

And in the long folds of her veil

Which flutters on the autumn breeze,

The wondering heart, adoring, sees

Truth, like a star, now gleam, now pale.

It says, this voice you know again,

That only goodness is our life,

And that of hate and envious strife.

When death is come naught shall remain.

It tells the vast felicity

Of simple hearts that true love mates,

The tender happiness that waits

In peace unwon by victory.

O welcome the sweet voice, whose glad

And artless wedding song returns.

Go; naught so soothes the soul that burns

Than making other souls less sad.

They are but fleeting pains that flay

The soul that suffers without wrath,

And sure, undoubting, is its path!

. . . O hearken the sagacious lay.

[Note: Lay is an old word for song.]

The Very Sweet Song

Hear the very sweet song,

Which cries only to please you.

It is discreet, it is happy:

A shiver of water on some moss.

The voice was known and dear to you,

But now it is veiled,

Like a desolate widow

But still as proud as she

And in the long folds of her veil,

Which palpitates with the autumn breezes

Hides and shows the surprised heart

The truth like a star.

It said, the voice recognized

That goodness is our life

The of hate and envy

Nothing remains, once death has come.

Welcome the voice that persists in its naive nuptial song

Go on, nothing is better for the soul

Than to make a soul less sad.

The soul which suffers without anger is in pain and in passing

And since its moral is clear

. . . Listen to the very wise song.