The Unknown Island

Jose van Dam ~ Berlioz – L’Ile inconnue

“Tell me, my pretty lass,
where would you like to go?
The sail billows,
and the breeze is rising!

The oar is of ivory,
the pennant of silk,
the rudder of pure gold;
I have an orange for ballast,
for a sail, an angel’s wing…
and as our cabin boy: a seraph.

Tell me, my pretty lass,
where would you like to go?
The sail billows,
and the breeze is rising!  

Is it to the Baltic..
or to the Pacific Ocean…
to the island of Java?
Or maybe is it to Norway,
to gather snow flowers?
Or the blossoms of Angoska?

Tell me, my pretty lass,
where would you like to go?
The sail billows,
the breeze is rising!

Take me, said the fair girl,
to the faithful shore
where love is forever true.

That shore, my darling,
is hardly known
in the realm of love.

Where would you like to go?

The breeze is rising!”

~ translation of Théophile Gautier’s poem L’Ile Inconnue