Rose en hiver ailleurs partie

Dites où vous avez été.

L’Europe aux couleurs assorties

Change la place des étés.

La rose, dont souvent je parle,

Orne avec l’ancre et le pompon,

Vénus faite comme une perle

En pliant toujours ses jupons.

Ce compromis de chair, d’écume,

Forme les plus étrange nœuds,

Entre les poissons épineux

Et, Vénus, vos ramiers de plume.

Dans le bocage de mes os,

Dans l’arbre bleu de mes artères,

Mêlez-vous, fleurs, poissons, oiseaux,

Si mal réunis sur la terre.

Rose in winter gone elsewhere

Say where you have been.


Europe with assorted colours

Changes the place of summers.

The rose, of which I often speak,

decorates with the anchor and the pompom,

Venus made like a pearl

And always folding her petticoats.

This compromise of flesh, of froth,

Forms the strangest of knots

Between the scaly fish

And, Venus, your feathery branches.

In the bocage of my bones,

In the blue tree of my arteries,

Flowers, fish, birds – mingle together!

So poorly united on Earth.

Jean Cocteau, Nocturne

Germaine Tailleferre became known in France as a member of the “Groupe des Six”, a group of composers who frequented Jean Cocteau (Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Louis Durey, Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger). Tailleferre mainly composed for the piano, orchestra and voices, as well as film music. The Nocturne is her only organ piece, composed in 1977.

This window, which pictures an angel playing a musical instrument to a group of animals, is most probably a reference to King David.