Poems of Yeghishe Charent

Yeghishe Charent

Poems of Yeghishe Charent

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.1917

GIRL 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 …1916-1917

BLUE

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.1916-1917

Travelers 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:

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