Les chemins de l'amour - Francis Poulenc (performed by Katie Kelley)

This performance is from October 20, 2025, in Michael Hanley's fall studio recital (as a guest from the studio of Sandra Piques Eddy). I'm performing "Les chemins de l'amour" by Francis Poulenc.

Pianist: Sage Fogle

TEXT:
Les chemins qui vont à la mer
Ont gardé de notre passage
Des fleurs effeuillées
et l’écho sous leurs arbres
de nos deux rires clairs.
Hélas! des jours de bonheur,
Radieuses joies envolées,
Je vais sans retrouver traces dans mon cœur.

Chemins de mon amour
Je vous cherche toujours
Chemins perdus, vous n’êtes plus
Et vos échos sont sourds.
Chemins du désespoir,
Chemins du souvenir,
Chemins du premier jour,
Divins chemins d’amour.

Si je dois l’oublier un jour,
La vie effaçant toute chose,
Je veux, dans mon cœur,
qu’un souvenir repose,
plus fort que l’autre amour.
Le souvenir du chemin
Où tremblante et toute éperdue,
Un jour j’ai senti sur moi brûler tes mains

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
The paths that lead to the sea
Have kept from our passing
The flowers that shed their petals
And the echo, beneath their trees,
Of our dear laughter.
Alas! of those happy days,
those radiant joys now flown,
I wander without finding traces in my heart.

Paths of my love
I look for you always
Lost paths, you are no more
And your echoes are muted.
Paths of despair,
Paths of memory,
Paths of the first day,
Divine paths of love.

If I must forget him one day,
Since life erases everything,
I want, in my heart,
for one memory to remain,
stronger than the other love.
The memory of the path
Where, trembling and quite distracted,
I one day felt on me your passionate hands.