Bourget/Debussy Beau Soir • Cody Bowers, Countertenor

Beautiful evening

English Translation © Richard Stokes

When at sunset the rivers are pink
And a warm breeze ripples the fields of wheat,
All things seem to advise content -
And rise toward the troubled heart;
Advise us to savour the gift of life,
While we are young and the evening fair,
For our life slips by, as that river does:
It to the sea - we to the tomb.
Translation © Richard Stokes, from A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000)