Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux [English translation]

Man never fully masters anything

Neither his strength, his weakness, nor his heart

And when he thinks he opens his arms

His shadow is that of a cross.

When he tries to grasp happiness, he crushes it.

His life is a strange and painful divorce.

There isn't any happy love

His life resembles those unarmed soldiers

Who'd been groomed for a different destiny

Why should they get up in the morning ?

When nighttime finds them uncertain, idle ?

Say these words: My life, and hold back your tears

There isn't any happy love

My beautiful love, my dear love, my tearing hurt,

I carry you inside me like a wounded bird,

And, those, unknowingly ,who watch us passing by

Repeat after me these words that I had woven

Yet which, for your lovely

eyes, immediately died:

There isn't any happy love

By the time we have learnt to live, it's way too late.

May our hearts that cry in unison at night yield

What It takes of misfortune to get the simplest song,

What It takes of regrets to get a single thrill,

What It takes of sobbings just for a guitar tune.

There isn't any happy love.

There is no love that does not end in pain.

There is no love by which one is not wounded.

There is no love by which one is not sullied.

And no greater love for the nation than for you.

There is no love that does not feed on sobs.

There isn't any happy love.

But this love is ours, to both of us..

• Artist:Louis Aragon