There is an air for which I would give
All Rossini, all Mozart, all Weber,
A very old, languid, funereal air,
Which has secret charms for me alone.

And every time I come to hear it,
My heart becomes two hundred years younger...
It's under Louis XIII, and I seem to see
a green hill extending, yellowed by the setting sun.

Then a brick chateau with corners of stone,
With windows tinted in reddish colors,
Surrounded by great parks, with a river
Bathing its feet, flowing among the flowers;

Then a lady at her high window,
Blonde with black eyes, in her ancient clothes,
Whom I had already seen, perhaps in another existence... And whom I remember!

Gérard de Nerval (english translation by David Jonathan Justman)

To the original french version