Poems of Yeghishe Charent

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 wept
On one ancient night.
Blue is the ringing of the morning bell
Calling for prayer.
Blue is a tear, blue is the dew
Of soul and heaven.
Through blue true words flow
From heaven to heaven.
In the labyrinth of the blue
My soul – a sanctified seal.
Whatever is not, and has yet to come
In a child's heart-
Flows like wine of light
In 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 sight
Of distant and heavenly paths,
As we tread these earthly roads
Where 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 days
Our hearts burned with life so many times,
But our eyes saw no sun
And our hearts, no distant lights.
Our misty eyes forever searched
The gilded paths of the Milky Way,
And its boundless, infinite span
In the eyes of every passerby.
But in those eyes we never glimpsed heaven,
Nor in their hearts a golden sun.
And our orphaned, agonizing hearts
Broke into pieces from their lifeless gaze.
I wanted to sing praises to God
And the glory of luminous love and bread -
My heart swelled… But instead
I 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 longings
And 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 die
For we dreamed in our dreams and went away.
 

BUFFOON

 
"And your soul like wine
Will inundate their black
And morbid floor."
The Feast, Ballad I
Would you like me to sing
For you
– Now?
I sing so that you feel
Whatever you want -
Be it love or death.
I sing to move your hearts.
I give my song of light
To you all,
Even to the last whore.
Do you like at all
This bearish tenderness
Of 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 get
Drunk.
I don't want you to get drunk.
It is not good, you know,
When an infinite yearning turns into a cloying
Breeze.
Don't you understand?
Alas, alas – but you must
Understand.
We need to fly? – but where to?
Don't you understand?
I want my luminous
Songs
To seem like paper and ink to you.
Don't you understand?
But you must!
Nothing else.
And now
It’s the same again
I sing to move your hearts.
I sing despite myself.
Whatever I sing – be it love
Or death.
I am a buffoon now.
 

1920