Nor organ nor last rites
Eleven years already how quickly eleven years go by
You made use simply of your weapons
Death does not dazzle the eyes of Partisans
You had your pictures on the walls of our cities
Black with beard and night hirsute menacing
The poster that looked like a bloodstain
Because your names are hard to pronounce
Was meant to create fear among the passers-by
No one seemed to see you French by choice
People went by all day without seeing you
But at curfew wandering fingers
Had written under your photos FALLEN FOR FRANCE
And it made the dismal mornings different
Everything had the uniform colour of frost
In late February for your last moments
And that is when one of you said calmly
Happiness to all Happiness to those who will survive
I die with no hate in me for the German people
Farewell grief and pleasure Farewell roses
Farewell life farewell light and wind
Get married be happy and think of me often
You who will remain in the beauty of things
When everything will be over later in Yerevan
A great winter sun lights up the hill
How beautiful is nature and how broken is my heart
Justice will come on our triumphant footsteps
My Mélinée O my love my orphan girl
And I am telling you to live and to have a child
There were twenty-three of them when the guns flowered
Twenty-three who were giving the heart before the time
Twenty-three foreigners and yet our brothers
Twenty-three in love with life to the point of losing it
Twenty-three who were shouting France as they fell.
http://arewelostintranslation.blogspot.com/2010/01/louis-aragon-translation-of-red-poster.html
