Jean Ferrat - Louis Aragon - Epilogue

Original Title: "Epilogue"
Text: Louis Aragon
Year: 1994

Life would have passed like a sad big castle through which all the winds go
The drafts slam the doors and yet no bedroom is closed
Some strangers sit there, poor and weary who knows why, some of them armed
The grass grew in the ditches so much the portcullis can not be closed anymore

When I was young I was told that soon would come the victory of angels
Ah how I believed in it, how I believed in it then I became old
The time of the young people is for them like a forelock always falling back over their eyes
And what's left of it for the elderly is too heavy and too short that for them the wind changes

I will write those verses with arms wide open so that one can feel my heart beat there four times
Even if I have to die for it I will go beyond my throat and my voice, my breath and my song
I am the reaper drunk from reaping who is being seen laying waste to his life and his field
And panting of the time he loses there, who beats the living out of his scythe

I see all what you have in front of you, of misfortune, of blood, of weariness
You would not have learned anything from our illusions, not understood a thing of our missteps
We were of no use to you, you will have to pay the price at your turn
I see your shoulder bend. On your forehead I see the crease of the habits

Of course, of course you will tell me that it's always like that but precisely
Think about all those who put their living fingers, the flesh hands in the gearing
So that it changes and think of those who weren't even discussing their cage
May we have the right to despair, the right to stop for a moment

I will write those verses with arms wide open so that one can feel my heart beat there four times
Even if I have to die for it I will go beyond my throat and my voice, my breath and my song
I am the reaper drunk from reaping who is being seen laying waste to his life and his field
And panting of the time he loses there, who beats the living out of his scythe

Think that we never stop fighting and that having vanquished is hardly a thing
And that everything is in the balance again from the moment that man is accountable of man
We have seen great things done but there have been dreadful ones
Because it not always easy to know where is the evil where the good

And one day will come when you'll have on you the senseless sun of victory
Remember that we knew that as well and that others climbed up
To tear off the flag of servitude from the Acropolis and that they were thrown down,
Them and their glory, still panting, in the communal grave of History

I will write those verses with arms wide open so that one can feel my heart beat there four times
Even if I have to die for it I will go beyond my throat and my voice, my breath and my song
I am the reaper drunk from reaping who is being seen laying waste to his life and his field
And panting of the time he loses there, who beats the living out of his scythe

I don't say that to demoralize you. One has to look straight at the nothingness
To know how to triumph against it. The song is not less beautiful when it declines
One has to know how to hear it elsewhere when it rebirths like the echo among the hills
We aren't the only one in the world to sing both the drama and the collection of songs

Drama one has to know how to hold his share of it and even if a voice may go quiet
Remember always that the deep chorus will take back the interrupted sentence
As long as up to the bottom of himself, the singer did what he could
No matter if along your way you'll abandon me like an hypothesis

I will write those verses with arms wide open so that one can feel my heart beat there four times
Even if I have to die for it I will go beyond my throat and my voice, my breath and my song
I am the reaper drunk from reaping who is being seen laying waste to his life and his field
And panting of the time he loses there, who beats the living out of his scythe