Colloquy
(for two flutes)

To Francis Poulenc, who

made this colloquy sing.

A

Of a dying rose

The trouble inclines our way;

You are different nowise

In your hush so gay

From this dying flower;

It dies for you and me...

You seem to me akin

To one whose ear hath been

Here upon my knee,

To one whose ear hath been

Deaf to me alway;

You seem to me akin

To the other I praised:

But that one formerly,

Her mouth was mine indeed.

B

How shall I be likened

To a wilted rose?

Love was never flight from

The fresh and the spontaneous...

My two eyes in yours

See the good that’s theirs:

I see me thus quite naked!

My face shall hence undo

The tears that come to you

From a memory heightened!...

If your desire was born

Let it die on my couch

And my two lips upon

That bring to you a mouth...

Paul Valéry