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FANTASY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is an air for which I'd gladly give
Last Line: And whom I now remember with a sigh.
Alternate Author Name(s): Nerval, Gerard De
Subject(s): Fantasy; Music & Musicians; Reincarnation; Transmigration; Pretas


There is an air for which I'd gladly give
All Mozart, all Rossini, all Von Weber,
A languid, ancient, solemn-sounding air
That yields its secret charm to me alone.

Each time it happens that I hear it played
My heart grows younger by two hundred years:
I live in former times . . . and see portrayed
A green slope gilded by the setting sun,

And then a feudal castle flanked with stone,
Its windows tinted to a glowing rose,
Bounded by spacious parks and with its feet
Bathed by a stream that through a garden flows.

And then a lady in a window high,
Fair-haired, dark-eyed, and dressed in ancient style . . .
Whom, in another life, perhaps I've seen,
And whom I now remember with a sigh.





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