Melisande's song [German translation]

The King's three blind daughters

Sit locked in a hold.

In the darkness their lamps

Make a glimmer of gold.

Up the stair of the turret

The sisters are gone,

Seven days they wait there

And the lamps they burn on.

"What hope?" says the first,

And leans o'er the flame.

"I hear our lamps burning.

O yet! if he came!"

"O hope!" says the second,

"Was that the lamps' flare,

Or a sound of low footsteps?

The Prince on the stair!"

But the holiest sister

She turns her about:

"O no hope now for ever,

Our lamps are gone out!"

• Artist:Gabriel Fauré