Kitobni o'qish: «Poems of Mugurdich Beshiktashlian»

1. DEATH OF A YOUTH OF ZEITOUN

 
WHOM dost thou seek, sweet mother?
Come, tremble not, draw near!
Gaze on thy son’s blood-streaming wounds
Without a sigh or tear.
Let Turkish mothers rend their hair;
Do thou glad news to Zeitoun bear !
 
 
As, by my cradle, thou didst soothe
With tender hand and smile
My childish form to sleep, and sing
With angel voice the while,
Lay me to rest, without a care,
And joyful news to Zeitoun bear !
 
 
Red floods are welling from my wounds,
But, mother, look around;
See how the fierce blood-thirsty Turks
By thousands strew the ground !
Our swords devoured them, scattered there :
Then joyful news to Zeitoun bear!
 
 
They smote us like a dragon,
With sudden roaring deep;
But Zeitoun shook her rocky head,
 

 
And rolled them down the steep.
Red was the stain our rocks did wear ;
Then joyful news to Zeitoun bear !
 
 
Our fathers’ ghosts applauded;
Our old fire is not dead !
Our slaughtered kin rejoiced to see
The blood of vengeance shed.
Mount Ararat the joy did share ;
Mother, glad news to Zeitoun bear!
 
 
Take my last kiss, my mother,
And bear it to my love;
A kiss, too, for my native soil,
That now my tomb must prove.
Plant thou a cross above me there,
And joyful news to Zeitoun bear !
 

2. SPRING

 
How cool and sweet, O breeze of morn,
Thou stirrest in the air,
Caressing soft the dewy flowers,
The young girl’s clustering hair !
But not my country’s breeze thou art.
Blow past! thou canst not touch my heart.
 
 
How sweetly and how soulfully
Thou singest from the grove,
O bird, while men admire thy voice
 

 
In tender hours of love !
But not my country’s bird thou art.
Sing elsewhere! Deaf to thee my heart.
 
 
With what a gentle murmur,
O brook, thy current flows,
Reflecting in its mirror clear
The maiden and the rose !
But not my native stream thou art.
Flow past! thou canst hot charm my heart
 
 
Though over ruins linger
Armenia’s bird and breeze,
And though Armenia’s turbid stream
Creeps ’mid the cypress-trees,
They voice thy sighs, and from my heart.
My country, they shall not depart!
 

3. A BRAVE SON OF ARMENIA

 
THERE leaned against a gravestone
Upon a mountain steep,
A fair-haired youth of gallant mien,
Who mused in sorrow deep.
 
 
His eyes now sought the heavens,
And now the earth below.
Son of the hills and valleys,
Why dost thou sorrow so ?
 
 
Dost thou desire, to soothe thee,
 

 
A vast and stormy sea,
Whose ranks of wind-stirred billows
Shall sing to comfort thee ?
 
 
Or heaven’s immense and wondrous vault,
Star-strewn, thine eyes to greet ?
Or smiles from nature’s fairest things,
The flowers, the zephyrs sweet ?
 
 
Or dost thou yearn for solace
All other joys above, —
A gentle mother’s kisses,
A sweetheart’s tender love?
 
 
To cure thy heart’s deep sorrow
What wouldst thou have, oh, what?
“ My longing is for powder,
For powder and for shot!”
 

4. WE ARE BROTHERS

 
FROM glorious Nature’s myriad tongues
Though songs be breathed by lips of love,
And though the maiden’s fingers fair
Across the thrilling harp-strings rove,
Of all earth’s sounds, there is no other
So lovely as the name of brother.
 
 
Clasp hands, for we are brothers dear,
Of old by tempest rent apart;