Armenian Legends and Poems 9

Armenian Legends and Poems 9

THE WIND IS HOWLING THROUGH THE WINTER NIGHT

 

By AVETIS ISAHAKIAN

 

 

The wind is howling through the winter night,

Like to a pack of angry wolves that cry.

My hapless willows bend before its might;

Their broken branches in the garden lie.

 

Alas, my heart, thy love since childhood’s days

Hath wept; thy dream was understood by none.

Seek not in vain a friend to know thy ways—

The soul is born eternally alone.

 

Thou from thy hopeless heart that love shalt cast—

That child of earth, false, illegitimate:

Shalt fling it to the night and wintry blast—

Out in the storm—there let it find its fate.

 

There motherless and orphaned let it weep,

And let the wind its sobbings onward bear

Unto some desert place, or stormy deep—

But not where human soul its voice may hear.

 

The wind is howling in its agony

All through this snow-bound night, with piercing cry;

Alas, beneath the broken willow tree

My shattered love lies dying—let it die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ARMENIAN POET’S PRAYER

 

By ALEXANDER DZADOURIAN

 

(Born 1870)

 

 

O God, ’tis not for laurel wreaths I pray,

For pompous funeral or jubilee;

Nor yet for fame beyond my life’s decay—

All these my country will accord to me.

 

One favour, Lord of Heaven, I implore—

One that my land to me will never give:

Grant me a crust of bread, or else such store

Of grace that I on air may learn to live!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CHRAGAN PALACE

 

By THOMAS TERZYAN

 

(1842–1909)

 

 

Have you ever seen that wondrous building,

Whose white shadows in the blue wave sleep?

There Carrara sent vast mounds of marble,

And Propontis, beauty of the deep.

 

From the tombs of centuries awaking,

Souls of every clime and every land

Have poured forth their rarest gifts and treasures

Where those shining halls in glory stand.

 

Ships that pass before that stately palace,

Gliding by with open sails agleam,

In its shadow pause and gaze, astonished,

Thinking it some Oriental dream.

 

New its form, more wondrous than the Gothic,

Than the Doric or Ionic fair;

At command of an Armenian genius [8]

Did the master builder rear it there.

 

By the windows, rich with twisted scroll-work,

Rising upward, marble columns shine,

And the sunbeams lose their way there, wandering

Where a myriad ornaments entwine.

 

An immortal smile, its bright reflection

In the water of the blue sea lies,

And it shames Granada’s famed Alhambra,

O’er whose beauty wondering bend the skies.

 

Oft at midnight, in the pale, faint starlight,

When its airy outline, clear and fair,

On the far horizon is depicted,

With its trees and groves around it there,

 

You can fancy that those stones grow living,

And, amid the darkness of the night,

Change to lovely songs, to which the spirit,

Dreaming, listens with a vague delight.

 

Have you ever seen that wondrous building

Whose white shadows in the blue wave sleep?

There Carrara sent vast mounds of marble,

And Propontis, beauty of the deep.

 

It is not a mass of earthly matter,

Not a work from clay or marble wrought;

From the mind of an Armenian genius

Stands embodied there a noble thought.

 

 

Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE DREAM

 

By SMPAD SHAHAZIZ

 

(1840–1897)

 

 

Soft and low a voice breathed o’er me,

Near me did my mother seem;

Flashed a ray of joy before me,

But, alas, it was a dream!

 

There the murmuring streamlet flowing

Scattered radiant pearls around,

Pure and clear, like crystal glowing—

But it was a dream, unsound.

 

And my mother’s mournful singing

Took me back to childhood’s day,

To my mind her kisses bringing—

’Twas a dream and passed away!

 

To her heart she pressed me yearning,

Wiped her eyes which wet did seem;

And her tears fell on me burning—

Why should it have been a dream?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SORROWS OF ARMENIA

 

 

In many a distant, unknown land,

My sons belovèd exiled roam,

Servile they kiss the stranger’s hand;

How shall I find and bring them home?

 

The ages pass, no tidings come;

My brave ones fall, are lost and gone.

My blood is chilled, my voice is dumb,

And friend or comfort I have none.

 

With endless griefs my heart is worn,

Eternal sorrow is my doom;

Far from my sons, despis’d, forlorn,

I must descend the darksome tomb.

 

Thou shepherd wandering o’er the hill,

Come weep with me my children lost;

Let mournful strains the valleys fill

For those we loved and valued most.

 

Fly, crane, Armenia’s bird, depart;

Tell them I die of grief; and tell