Les moulins de mon cœur [English translation]

Like a pebble that one tosses in a living, swirling stream

And the thousand circles spreading on the water as it flows

Like the starry horses spinning on the moon’s merry-go-round

Like the flattened rings of Saturn, or a carnival balloon

Like the circle path that’s followed by the hours without end

Like the journey ’round the world of a sunflower in bloom

You set spinning by your name all the windmills of my heart

Like a skein of yarn unraveled by the small hands of a child

Or the words to an old favorite on the soft harps of the wind

Like the snow caught in a whirlwind, like the seagulls’ wheeling flight

Over Norway’s towering pine trees, over white-capped ocean waves

Like the circle path that’s followed by the hours without end

Like the journey ’round the world of a sunflower in bloom

You set spinning by your name all the windmills of my heart

God remembers what you told me by the flowing stream that day

But the summer has an ending, young birds fall from out their nest

And already, see! our footprints growing fainter in the sand

I’m alone now at the table which my fingers set to sound

Like a tambourine that cries beneath the drops of falling rain

Like the songs which pass away upon having been forgot

And the early Autumn leaves, encountering skies of lesser blue

Are now painted, by your absence, in the colors of your hair

Like a pebble that one tosses in a living, swirling stream

And the thousand circles spreading on the water as it flows

With each changing season’s winds, you set spinning by your name

All the windmills of my heart

• Artist:Michel Legrand
• Album:Les moulins de mon cœur (1968)