Poems of Yeghishe Charent
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I Love the Sun Sweet Taste of Armenia
I love the sun-backed taste of Armenian words,the lilt of our ancient lutes in sweet laments,our blood-red, fragrant roses bendingas in Nayirian dances, danced still by our girls.I love the deep night sky, our lakes of light,the winter winds that howl like dragons exhaling fire.The meanest huts with blackened walls are dear to me;each of the thousand year old city stones.Wherever I go, I take our mournful music,our steel forged letters turned to prayers.However, sharp my wounds or drained of bloodor orphaned, my yearning heart turns there with love.There is no brow, no mind, like Narek's, Koutchak's,No mountain peak like Ararat's.Search the world there is no crest so white, so holy.So like an unreached road to glory, Masis mountain that I love.Fatherland
Snow-wrapped mountains and blue lakes,Skies like dreams of the soul,Skies like children's eyes.I was alone. You were with me.When I heard the whispers of the lake,And looked unceasingly into the distance,There rose in me that old longingFor you, that dream, holy, star-filled, infinite.In the clear evocative sunsetI called, called to the snow covered mountains;Night fell, darkening the distance,Mingling my soul with the starry dark.Our Language
Our language is flexible and barbaricmasculine and rough. At the sametime keeps an inner light, a lighthouselit with an eternal flame.Honorable, ingenious craftsmenhave carved its ancient stonesfor centuries, so they shinelike crystal. Sometimes weather blownmountain rock, always with its ownanimus. Today, it is by design,if we chip it, to stop rustfrom settling on our minds.Neither Narek's rustling parchmentnor Toumanian's bright Lori-growndialect can sheathe its modern spirit-not even Derian's silken tone.But wait. From the iron harvestour new language will be honedto hold the deep and homesick thoughtsthat are ours, ours alone.PARTING WORDS
I have put out so many fires in my eyesAnd so many stars have I put out in my desperate soul.Don't curse my life as you leave – it's just a memory now,My life will pass and fade away, but my song will live on.My life will pass and fade away like a fire in a swamp,Inconsolable and dull, without hope, without aim.In my songs no one recognizes me, you know,As if it were another singing the blue longing of my soul.Forever mute and estranged, I have wandered in silence.No one, no one knows who I am, what my life is about.All they know is in my life I have written a few songs,As I know that you exist, as I know that you are loved.I have sung to your soul, to your luminous smile,To the sacred sadness of your eyes and your face.My life abandoned in infinity, I have sung the profound loveAnd the longing of my arms that could never reach you.Oh, sister, my foggy evening is coming closer,How can I stop my longing soul from weeping?How, how can I accept the drained cup of my fate,So that my hands do not shake, so that my days forgive me?And what if suddenly I start doubting myself,And my sacred longing for you begins to feel like a lie?Whatever happens, sister, don't curse, when we part,The pitiable longing of my arms that could never reach you.1917GIRL LIKE A LAMPSHADE
Girl like a lampshade – with the Virgin Mary’s eyes,Tubercular, transparent, a body in a dream,Girl – blue, agate, milky, enchanting,Girl like a lampshade …What can I do, what can I do so that my soul doesn’t die,So that my soul doesn’t burn out in your agate eyes?What can I do to keep the rainbow tricolored,To keep the depth of my soul from fading and burning?Girl like a lampshade – with the Virgin Mary’s eyes,Tubercular, transparent, a body in a dream,Girl – blue, agate, milky, enchanting,Girl like a lampshade …1916-1917BLUE
Blue is the soul's prayer, sister,Blue is sorrow.Blue is longing, transparent and pure,Clear and immaculate.Blue is the morning, infinite and wet,Of a sister's eyes.My soul in the blue helplessly weptOn one ancient night.Blue is the ringing of the morning bellCalling for prayer.Blue is a tear, blue is the dewOf soul and heaven.Through blue true words flowFrom heaven to heaven.In the labyrinth of the blueMy soul – a sanctified seal.Whatever is not, and has yet to comeIn a child's heart-Flows like wine of lightIn the blue of the soul.1916-1917Travelers of the Milky Way
We are two travelers of the Milky Way,Two travelers in rags.We have cherished the sadness of our souls,Full of nostalgic dreams and love.We have cherished the sadness of our souls,These nostalgic dreams and this love.And from early morning until darkness falls,We like to wander and forever dream.Our eyes have held the magic sightOf distant and heavenly paths,As we tread these earthly roadsWhere countless souls once dreamt and now are gone.Our childhood vanished like a haze,Sunless, disconsolate and gray-Our childhood vanished in delirium,And we went away. We can never return.We left in silence and tirelessly walked,Envisioning eternal distance.Our life became an everlasting quest -Absurd, unusual and dark.And in these piebald, varied daysOur hearts burned with life so many times,But our eyes saw no sunAnd our hearts, no distant lights.Our misty eyes forever searchedThe gilded paths of the Milky Way,And its boundless, infinite spanIn the eyes of every passerby.But in those eyes we never glimpsed heaven,Nor in their hearts a golden sun.And our orphaned, agonizing heartsBroke into pieces from their lifeless gaze.I wanted to sing praises to GodAnd the glory of luminous love and bread -My heart swelled… But insteadI sang the anguish of these gloomy days…And the legend of an infinite blue-eyed happiness -The story of a heavenly connection, -Remained forever buried in my eyes-My heart hardened, turned barren and dark.No one understood us in this life-They laughed at our shining eyes,They jeered at our burning longingsAnd retreated. Not one brought us a sliver of light.The sister laughed, the friend mocked,The stranger cursed and hurried past.Only the whore granted us a kiss,And the madman murmured a greeting in the mist.But never mind that our days passed like a fever,And our life became an inconsolable delirium-We shall smile, happily smile as we dieFor we dreamed in our dreams and went away.BUFFOON
"And your soul like wineWill inundate their blackAnd morbid floor."The Feast, Ballad IWould you like me to singFor you– Now?I sing so that you feelWhatever you want -Be it love or death.I sing to move your hearts.I give my song of lightTo you all,Even to the last whore.Do you like at allThis bearish tendernessOf mine?I sing despite myself.Whatever I sing – whether about love,Or death,It is never fake.Listen to my songs,Here they are:Listen but don't getDrunk.I don't want you to get drunk.It is not good, you know,When an infinite yearning turns into a cloyingBreeze.Don't you understand?Alas, alas – but you mustUnderstand.We need to fly? – but where to?Don't you understand?I want my luminousSongsTo seem like paper and ink to you.Don't you understand?But you must!Nothing else.And nowIt’s the same againI sing to move your hearts.I sing despite myself.Whatever I sing – be it loveOr death.I am a buffoon now.1920TO A CHANCE PASSERBY
The two of us, the two of us, in this world with no return,Live, exist, wherever we go – the destination is the same.Stop, traveler, wait, let's look at each other, stay there, stand.Maybe we'll smile all of a sudden, as we recognize an unknown friend.Stop. Stop. Where are you rushing, where are you running so fast?Look closely, perhaps you will find the fire of a golden smile in my eyes.Aren't you glad that we both lived and met each other in this world?Stop, don’t go away, like an unreturning one-way road.I too will go on, lonely and sad, down the endless path of dreamsWhich this evening you have followed blindly and disappeared in the mist.You passed by, you didn't look and disappeared in the haze,But I will forever remember your unfamiliar, unknown face.I will remember that somebody crossed my wandering path.A chance passerby. It was evening, it was evening, misty and sad.1916THE WIND
The wind,The autumn windLashes its yellow stallions.Somewhere nowIt gathers its weighty soulAnd in the autumnal agonyDraws its last breath from a gigantic maw.The wind,The autumn windRumbles.And giant heaps of dust chase each otherLike herds in panic.The wind,The autumn wind…The city dark and gloomy.Every passerby is a yellow deliriumDreamed by the wind in the evening haze.The endless streets,Monotonous like the autumn rains,The streets in rows,The streets here, now,The cruel streets, repugnant and evil,They are so, so, so frightening now!The wind,The autumn windIs wandering lost.And wounded by fear of deathIt might destroy every barrier,The wind,The autumn wind …Rumbles,Snorts,Frenetically shakes the tarnished signboards,Windows echo fearful and strident vibrations,And the wind flies like an iron winged birdThrough dreadful and loathsome streets.Swirling, lost in abandoned streets,Full of awesome revenge and fury,Like a giant panther tracking his foe,Dust and bloodstained sand in its glances,The wind, the autumn wind now assailsThe boulevards helplessly crouched.Oh, the sick and orphaned trees on the boulevard,Like old women in rags,Lacerate their yellow tressesAnd shake their heads with grief!The trees sick and old,The trees crooked and dry,The trees poor and stripped like beggars:The wind strikes their decrepit headsAnd shrieks the ill omen of death.Never,Never,Never!Oh, have mercy nowOn these trees crucified on the desolate boulevards,Oh, save them from the blows of the windThat bring them mortal grief and death!Oh, have mercy now!Listen, listen, listen…In this awful and cruel hour of agony,It will return and invade your souls -The wind,The autumn wind.1922IMMEASURABLE SONNET
“… Will you accept aloneThis new Golgotha?”Vahan TerianWhere are you carrying your black wooden Cross,Oh, my tormented Soul? – is there a new GolgothaThat you shall mount with pride – and people will admireYour luminous crown with infinite love?Are you ascending the mount today as Jesus?Or… just a robber condemned to death?Is every man today a PilateWashing his hands of you?What crown of light?.. And how will you, my Soul,Ascend Golgotha with a willful passion, when, alas,You don’t know yourself whether you are Jesus or Judas?And do you have, my Soul, the ruthless scalesTo measure this immeasurable thought -In this black midnight of your suffering…LIKE MY PAST DAYS
Like my past days,Like my weary days,I am already gone,I am already aged.I am worn-out,I am old now,I am gone away and passed on,I have grown old.But in these shiny daysWhen the winds bluster,My old heart alsoBlows and sings.As though I were still young,As though I were enchanted,And my heart has kept aliveThe flames of the past.Yes, I know, it is youWho is enchanting meAnd charming and gazingIn these fiery days.You are whispering sweetly,A siren song that enchants me,Whispering and calling toI don't know where.And now I can feelThat in my last dreamMy soul starts longingFor you again.As though I grew old,And came back againAnd dreamed as beforeOf longing and love.1918-1920TO ELEGANT MISS L
Your soul – so delicate, starched,Your heart – a spoiled little bitch.While my soul is, you know,Used to sleeping in the streets.Your soul – so delicate, starched.Pardon me, but do you thinkThat it could sit on its pawsAnd howl from longing til dawn?Could your soul in the streets -Where one is not even allowed to fight -With the first dog it meetsUnite, that is mate?Oh, pardon me, Miss; but althoughI am a poet, as you know,I cannot restrain my feelingsWith good manners, as you do.And without being shy, tomorrow,As soon as spring starts blooming,I will let my wandering soulUnite, that is mate with all.Although I know that laterWhen sated it will start to sing,On the gums of my soulBlue sores will appear.However, again on the sidewalks,Looking for crumbs of bread,I'll squander my generous soulAnd give it to the stray dogs.Whores will become my sisters,Dogs – my beloved brothers,But what a pity you'll remain stranger to meWith your spotless, your starched soul.1921THE FEAST
The torches hesitantlyWink and signalIn the nocturnal yet viscousAmbushes of enchantment.There, stylish and corpulentWomen, like mannequins,Display the tinny jewelsOf false madness.Men tired and pale,And cold like corpsesAre filled with joyfulAnd fervent madness.Pass through alone! In the half darknessWith their passionate gestures,Unspeakable enchantmentsThey will enchant you.Sit down there. Let them,In their dark halls,Burn a red fire,Charmless and dim.May their old songsAnd their fragile smilesRemain estrangedFrom your longing soul.Pretend that long agoYou eagerly dreamed ofThis belated feast and love,This enchantment – for sale.And all will turn into lies,And your soul like wineWill inundate their blackAnd morbid floor.You will be thereUntil morning with them,In their suffocating feast,Meaningless and absurd.Now surrender until dawnLike a frail captiveTo their belated feast,Joyless and slaughterous.May the wild whirlwindNever stop even for a blink,Get drunk from their gruesome loveLest your lips part in a scream..SEMIRAMIS
With unquenchable craving for passion and embraceYou have returned to visit the cities of Nairi.Your unattractive and green corpse's eyesAre flaming again with insatiable desire.You are passing through and seeing those citiesWhere there were just weeds at the time of Ara.The world has changed. And Nairi has changed also.Now every king would give himself to your flame.There is no need for quarrels, no need for deadly battles-For the new kings just a smile will suffice.Just a small hint – and they will give themselves to you,To your bewitching, lascivious and feverish love.They will come one by one – and you will torture themWith the sharp arrows of your greedy love and allure.And they will make love to you with such passionThat your soul consumed with desire will heal at last.…But there will be a night, – when, full of Nairian charm,Your Ara will rise from the mist with his boyish smile.Your desolate soul will burn with desire again,And you will declare war with bewildered dismay.Lest to succumb to her morbid flame –The ancient Nairi will rise with him to fight.And in the fields of Nairi again he will fall,The troops will retreat, and the land will be yours.He will die as a martyr – but you will not defeat him.Bitter is the mystery of love, you, voluptuous Semiramis.1920MARIONETTE
Slowly, slowly, slowly, slow,Feet on the ground, the ground, the ground,It came and went, it came and went,Pale and yellow, pale and yellow.Moving the hand – first up, then down,Stamping its feet – a corpse, a corpse!Coming forward, painfully, slow,The hand falls down then up it goes.Here, here, look, it’s bending down,Will fall, will fall, but no, no, wait,One lip parts from lip below,Stops for a moment – staring at death.Then sharply screams, as if by force,Motionless eyes staring afar,This is the way my soul will dieSlowly, slowly, slowly, slowly…1920I GIVE THANKS TO THEE
I give thanks to thee, Lord, for allYou gave me in my pitiful life -For the bread I won with honest sweat,For the woman’s body, blessed as bread,For the defeats I had in my battles,For the occasional victories…And – finally – for the greatest fortuneAnd grace you bestowed on me with your hands,The intimacy of the immaculate MusesThat in this inexorable life is given to few,A divine award, an inaccessible gift …For which I would willfully bear in lifeTenfold times as muchDreadful bitterness and suffering,Inexorable tortures and persecution,And even death.1936Monuments
Look at the statue, metallic, talleyes on the distance overlooking all.Ingenious thought etched in this brow rowsBut what did he achieve in life? No one knows.There are also living monuments, tall and proudstanding (no one knows why) above the crowd.Our empty heads provide pedestals for these men.Our stupidity makes monuments out of them.Ode to Books
Like multiplied suns,like stars, with diffused light,I love their voices reaching downfrom other worldsspeaking with passion tomatch an adolescent's earnest desire-I love them, old and new,artful and artless. I love themwith the will and intentof a mature man reaching towardhis life goal.I love the noble cavalry of thoughtsthe world of books.Look at them, births so far apartin place and time, each withits own universe, its unique giftjoining like intimate friendson a journey,or a resting at home in the past.Some lifelong co-travelerseternal, some unfaltering,others hovering to haunt,like evil ghosts pursuingus forever.And those with a momentary smileleaving only something elusivein our hearts. Someharsh teachers, leaders, martinetsdemand, command, and others whispersecretive, non-communicative messages. Examples ofparadox. Still more, who flirt,their flighty ways fatedto be forgotten fast.There are cruel masters too withmerciless phrases. Others areunadorned pamphlets withoutornament. While somecome like Balthasarthe Assyrian King, painted like a whore.Yes there are accounts,artless journeys as confusedas nature but which yield radiantsecrets to the persistent eye.Others, locked castlesof thought, opento the fearless alone.While fabled mansions besidethem are full of emptydust, when entered. Andif the intruder stays, he isgrabbed at the throatby a dead man's hand.Others are forest roads,dense, dark. Some,swift and sweet as windsthat glow. Still more-refresh like a caressor rouse like a fluteor trumpet, or unsettlelike the roar of thunder.And there are those which fillour hearts slowly and silentlywith elegiac passionswe did not know we had.What variety, never ending,mysterious harmonies, originality,unfolding, revealing differencesamong them. And all dear to me,Like sun-variegations, likea multi-tongued universe,I love the many colored fires,the voices of nature,the fragrances of human life,in this the reflection ofthe constantly shifting constellationsmaking more lives, new worlds,self-contained-all restingon wooden shelves in silence.But alive. I love their labyrinthof endless color, deep effusion, -the boundless universe of books.1933Seven Pieces of Advice for Planters to Come
Sowers of the future, you who are goingto plant seeds from full hands,into these fertile furrows that we plowed,these painted by our sweat, blood and songs.O, you who will walk with light hearts intoturquoise days that break like cymbalsof sun, may I, your distant brother, be allowedto send you seven pieces of advice?The first recommendation which I addressfrom these old bristling, burning days is this:Let your fist handful of seedpave our fields with illusion and dreams.Spread them like goodness which does not endtoward the birds and winds of our land.Let their joy be limitlessthe way our old suffering had no bounds.Direct your second favor tot he north,the wide Steppes wherein this divided nationthe red hurricane turns to summer rain.And throw the third handful of your seedtoward Mount Ararat. Let it flylike condensed fever, in delirium,to piece the snow-beaten mountain's chest.Plant then a handful of wheat and imaginationbright and honest as your hopes.Plant them in the old town of Norkso that the new bud of song begins.And let the fifth toss of your deep treasurebe a gift to our spiritwhich in the distant past created songand its nobler dream.And the sixth handful, plantersaddress to the bones of the more recent past.You will suddenly hear sighs andvoices from the depths of your land.Then only then, after those sixfill your palms, for the seventh time, thenwith your open hand sow your future harvestthe endless furrow that stretches ahead.I Sang Every Style of Song
I sang every style of song. The ode surpassed all.And of all immortals, Sayat Nova outstays all.I saw myriads of fruit in bazaars, arrayed row on row.But the garden of the Shah of Shahs is where immortalfruit can grow.No matter with what watering my garden is blessedthe early dew of morning makes roses bloom best.I traveled west to see mansions, and stately chateaux.Still the street of my beloved was where my heart ached to go.If you want to write songs, Charents, go to the source.Listen to the lover. Love's grief is the force.Testiment
Look! A new light is ascending!Who brought this sun to our world?Gaze upon this golden star,Arriving through fire,Embracing the earth, ridingBefore dawn, steeds of porphyry,Infusing light and ecstasy,Giving to the new world and menLasting bliss and harmony.And who turned on this restless light,Opening the gates to the crimson blaze?Tell me, what hand set the fireTo illuminate with flame-red flare andSpirit? Who set this diamond of a lightGlowing with such glare in aSetting darkened with blight…?By being a bearer of life's stress,Lowered to the depths of slaveryRunning stream of wisdom in anArid plain of insanity -How many years, and centuries,In your long, long history,Clinging to the bare truthBy sheer will, you bore witness…?Is there no river cresting along theDark banks where our homeland was?Clamoring against serfdom,Ever flowing through endless timePassing through hideous darkness,It carried the seeds of this sunriseSimmering visions of distant dreamsBorn for eons on its waves…Under the burden of an existenceSinged by sorrow and strife, stillA spirit alive, a stream aflame,Lighting a new crimson torchAnd hailing the coming triumph…Bygone embers are lit now,Nothing dampens our radiant spirit,Our shining star soars anewBright as this world ablaze…Accept this sun-the only oneFor ages to come-and beyond…Always rising, always aloft,Clearing the skies of all tarnishBeckoning us towards justiceScrubbed of all blemish and grime…It cautions us with fiery plumes,Signaling us to stand firm…Ever present, ever brightLet it always remain in sight.Issued in fire ant dazzling light,Steady hands should hold these scalesCradling the spirit of our lore,Lest it tumbles, dropped by usInto gaping, horrid depths…A great, pensive page from our past,Stable and just as our people's soul,The solid history of wisdom's court.Ode to my Mother
I remember your old face, mother so sweet and precious,Luminous lines and wrinkles, mother so sweet and precious.There you have sat by the house and the greened tree of berryHas cast shadow on your face, mother so sweet and precious.You've sat down sad and silent, remembering those old days,Which have come and then have passed, mother so sweet and precious.You remember now your son, who has left so long ago, -You wonder where he has gone, mother so sweet and precious.You wonder where is he now, is he alive, is he dead?And what doors has he beaten, mother so sweet and precious?And when he was so weary, when of love he was deceived -On whose lap was he sobbing, mother so sweet and precious?You're pondering so sadly, the berry tree is rockingYour sorrow so limitless, mother so sweet and precious.And tears bitter and salty are now falling one by oneAll over your olden hands, mother so sweet and precious…!1920Toward the future
My infinite soul is already fullWith confusing songs and also noises;My electric heart is already fullWith inflamed currents.My soul has become a radio stationFor the entire world and all of mankind;And it is so high, my soul's station,Like Massis so high, and also so firm -Mighty, terrible!In these fervent days, wind-driven, confused -The song of million hearts distant or nearIt is now my fate to sing it today;My multimillion, ten thousands of friends'Joy of today and their great flight as well -Today it's my song's turn to cast the fateOf the coming days.Therefore this is whyAs a gigantic, as an EiffelianEnormous tower,At past and coming centuries' thresholdMighty, high above,I am now standing with my entire heightAnd I am singing.And my soul is now a radio station,It is now sending its fiery red songFar and far away; -To all of the hearts, who live and existIn all directions.My soul is singing, sounding fervently.I know in front of my song of today -Facing the red sparks of my soul as well -Each single soul is a radio station,Wherever it is!Every soul which lives, each soul which exists,And is carrying upon its own wingsThe same great concept, the immense conceptOf these fervent days, -The radiant concept of these fervent days.Every single soul,Which is today with its wings of ironRinging and rustling -And is searching for new rest and lullingIn the uproar of million rebel wings…Do you know, that nowHere -In my ruined country of NayiriAnd far – far away -Inside red Moscow,At yellow Tibet,At San Francisco, enormous LondonAnd at Singapore -In all locations, in all directionsThe world is pregnant with a novel song?Far away- and nearInside the mine pits,At the factories,In the wide steppes and in the forests -In all locations, in all directions,My brothers, thousands, who're lulled with the songOf iron and of bronze, of the soil and mines!Who possesses our will of fire today,Our blood-red powerOur fervent fortuneSo universal?Who has them today…?It's us who are new, we're tens of thousands!Like an enormous disc made of ironThe brave will of our thousands of brothers,So universal -We have already thrown with immense forceToward all the winds of the coming days,Toward – the Future…1920