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"

C. A. TOTOCHIAN.

1. The Wandering Armenian to the Swallow
2. Song of Revolution
3. The Lament of Mother Armenia

1. THE WANDERING ARMENIAN TO THE SWALLOW.

O, SWALLOW, gentle swallow,
Thou lovely bird of spring!
Say, whither art thou flying
So swift on gleaming wing?

Fly to my birthplace, Ashdarag,
The spot I love the best;
Beneath my father’s roof-tree,
O swallow, build thy nest.

There dwells afar my father,
A mournful man and gray,
Who for his only son’s return
Waits vainly, day by day.

If thou shouldst chance to see him,
Greet him with love from me ;
Bid him sit down and mourn with tears
His son’s sad destiny.

In poverty and loneliness,
Tell him, my days are passed:
My life is only half a life,
My tears are falling fast.

To me, amid bright daylight,
The sun is dark at noon;
To my wet eyes at midnight
Sleep comes not, late or soon.

Tell him that, like a beauteous flower
Smit by a cruel doom,
Uprooted from my native soil,
I wither ere my bloom.

Fly on swift wing, dear swallow,
Across the quickening earth,
And seek in fair Armenia
The village of my birth !

2. SONG OF REVOLUTION.

IF on the ocean tempest-tossed
My shattered bark be wrecked and lost,
Amid the wild and raging sea
All hope shall not depart from me.

With all my power, with steadfast will,
I’ll wage a swimmer’s battle still,
And, cleaving mighty waves that roar,
I’ll urge my pathway toward the shore.

And if in this unequal strife
My powers succumb, and fails my life, —
If whirling waves that foam and hiss
Shall whelm me in the deep abyss, —

One great, sweet thought shall serve to fill
My heart with consolation still:
That hero-like my spirit passed,
Contending bravely to the last.

3. THE LAMENT OF MOTHER ARMENIA.

IN alien lands they roam, my children dear;
Where shall I make appeal, with none to hear ?
Where shall I find them ? Far away from me
My sons serve others, thralls in slavery.

CHORUS.
Oh. come, my children, back to me !
Come home, your motherland to see !

Ages have passed, no news of them I hear;
Dead, dead are they, my sons that knew not fear.
I weep, the blood is frozen in my veins;
No one will cure my sorrows and my pains.

My blood is failing and my heart outworn,
My face forever mournful and forlorn;
To my dark grave with grief I shall descend,
Longing to see my children to the end.

O wandering shepherd, you whose mournful song
Rings through the valleys as you pass along!
Come, let us both, with many a bitter tear,
Weep for the sad death of our children dear !

Crane of the fatherland, fly far away,
Fly out of sight, beyond the setting day;
My last sad greetings to my children bear,
For my life’s hope has died into despair!