ARMENIAN POEMS

Contents | Table of contents [as in the book] | Preface | Introduction

APPENDIX: The Armenian Women | The Armenian Church
Bibliography | Comments on the first edition of "Armenian Poems"

DANIEL VAROUJAN was born in a village of Sebastia in 1884. He studied at St. Lazare, Venice, and later in Belgium. He is the author of a series of martial and patriotic epics. He is believed to have perished in the Constantinople massacres of 1915.

1. The Longing Letter
2. The Working Girl
3. Alms
4. The Aged Crane

1. THE LONGING LETTER.

MY mother writes: “My son on pilgrimage,
How long beneath a strange moon will you roam?
How long a time must pass ere your poor head
To my warm bosom I may press, at home?

“Oh, long enough upon strange stairs have trod
Your feet, which in my palms I warmed one day—
Your heart, in which my breasts were emptied once,
Far from my empty heart has pined away!

“My arms are weary at the spinning wheel;
I weave my shroud, too, with my hair of snow.
Ah, would mine eyes could see you once again,
Then close forever, with my heart below!

“Always I sit in sadness at my door,
And tidings ask from every crane that flies.
That willow slip you planted long ago
Has grown till over me its shadow lies.

“I wait in vain for your return at eve.
All the brave fellows of the village pass,
The laborer goes by, the herdsman bold—
I with the moon am left alone, alas!

“ My ruined house is left without a head.
Sometimes for death, and always for the cheer
Of my own hearth I yearn. A tortoise I,
Whose entrails to its broken shell adhere!

“Oh, come, my son, your ancient home restore!
They burst the door, they swept the larders bare.
Now all the swallows of the spring come in
Through shattered windows, open to the air.

“ Of all the goodly flocks of long ago
One brave ram only in our stable stands.
His mother once—remember, little son—
While yet a lamb, ate oats out of your hands.

“Rice, bran and clover fine I give him now,
To nourish his rich dmak,* of noble size;
I comb his soft wool with a wooden comb;
He is a dear and precious sacrifice.

“When you come back, his head with roses wreathed,
He shall be sacrificed to feast you, sweet;
And in his blood, my well-beloved son,
I then will wash my pilgrim’s weary feet.”

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* A mass of fat which hangs down behind sheep of this breed, in place of a tail.
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2. THE WORKING GIRL.

BENEATH my window, as each morning dawns,
You like a wandering ghost go flitting by,
And on your beauteous virgin head there fall
Tears from my rose vine, leafless now and dry.

I hear your footsteps in the silent street,
And the awakened dog that barks at you;
Or in my sleep I hear the constant cough
That racks your lovely bosom through and through.

I think that you are hungry, robbed of sleep,
Your body shivering in the breezes cold,
And on your tresses, O my sister! Lies
The frost, like jewels, glittering to behold.

Or else, I think, your shoes are torn and rent;
The water from the street is oozing through;
Or impudently, as you pass along,
Some scoundrel Turk is whistling after you.

I think that ill at home your mother lies,
And that the oil which fed the lamp is dry,
And to the factory you go, to toil
For light and life. I think of it, and sigh!

I think of it, and madly then I wish
I might come down, my pallid sister dear,
Come down to you, to kiss your thin, frail hand,
And whisper low, “I love you!” in your ear.

I love your sorrow, which is mine as well—
My grief of griefs, all other woes above;
I love your shattered breast, where still your love
Sings on and on—a skylark wild with love.

Pale girl, I long to press you to my heart
Like some poor banished dove, forlorn and lone—
Give you my strength, my prizes won from fame,
And my untarnished name to be your own.

Fain would I be your honor’s veil and screen,
My breast a shield for your defenceless breast.
If I could guard, with arms as granite strong,
Your sex and your grave beauty, I were blest!

Fain would I give you all that I have won
In life’s hard struggle, all I have of good—
Crown you with roses of my victory,
Roses that wear the color of my blood;

Only that never more, my sister dear,
You should be pale and hungry, coughing sore,
And that your mother’s lamp should not go out,
And to the factory you should go no more!

3. ALMS.

TO THE STARVING PEOPLE.

“THERE is famine; bread, bread !”
Who is sighing?
On the threshold of my cottage, who is sighing?
My love has gone out, with the flame in my fireplace.
Ashes within me, ashes around me; oh, of what use is it
To sow tears on ashes?
I have nothing, nothing! To-day, with my last
Small coin I bought poison;
I shall mix poison within me.
Come to-morrow to the graveyard, thou Hungry One,
Through the storm, early, when around the village
Wolves are still wandering.
Come to-morrow! As bread, from my grave
I will throw into that bag of thine
My poet’s heart.
My poet’s heart shall be thy blood, the blood of thy orphans,
As long as thy grief lives.
Come to-morrow to the graveyard, O thou Hungry One!

4. THE AGED CRANE.

ON the bank of the river, in the row of cranes,
That one drooped its head,
Put its beak under its wing, and with itsaged
Dim pupils, awaited
Its last black moment.
When its comrades wished to depart,
It could not join them in their flight.
Scarcely could it open its eyes and watch in the air
The path of the little flock that went along
Calling down to those under the roofs
The tidings, the greetings and the tears
Entrusted to them by the exile.
Ah, the poor bird! In the bleak embrace
Of that cold autumnal silence, it is dying.
It is vain to dream any more
Of a distant spring, of cool currents of air
Under strong and soaring wings,
Or of passing through cool brooks
With naked feet, of dipping its long neck
Amongst the green reeds;
It is vain to dream any more!
The wings of the Armenian crane
Are tired of traveling. It was true
To its heart-depressing calling;
It has transported so many tears!
How many young wives have put among its soft feathers
Their hearts, ardently beating!
How many separated mothers and sons
Have loaded its wings with kisses!
Now, with a tremor on its dying day,
It shakes from its shoulders
The vast sorrow of an exiled race.
The vows committed to it, the hidden sighs
Of a betrothed bride who saw at length
Her last rose wither unkissed;
A mother’s sad blessing;
Loves, desires, longings,
It shakes at last from its shoulders.
And on the misty river-bank
Its weary wings, spread for the last time,
Point straight toward
The Armenian hills, the half-ruined villages.
With the voice of its dying day
It curses immigration,
And falls, in silence, upon the coarse sand of the river bank.
It chooses its grave,
And, thrusting its purple beak
Under a rock, the dwelling-place of a lizard,
Stretching out its curving neck .
Among the songs of the waves,
With a noble tremor it expires!
A serpent there, which had watched that death-agony
Silently for a long time with staring pupils,
Crawls up from the river-bank,
And, to revenge a grudge of olden days,
With an evil and swift spring
Coils around its dead neck.

Contents | Table of contents [as in the book] | Preface | Introduction

APPENDIX: The Armenian Women | The Armenian Church
Bibliography | Comments on the first edition of "Armenian Poems"