Poems of Yeghishe Charent

Charents Yeghishe

With philosophical insight Yeghishe Charent reexamines the fighting journey of his people passed through cross-roads of history, emphasizes the role of the creative individual in the history of the people, shows the impact of political incidents of the time on the national fate. His way of writing prompts to discover in him several creators – the poet of the tragedy of the motherland and the poet of the tragedy of man, the traveller of mysterious dreams, the messenger of the battled for change of life and the sacrifice of temptations to his people, the messenger of new art and the singer of new days, the annalist of the idealistic history of the time, the philosopher of history course, the fate of people and the true witness to tragic fight and valour. In the infinite world of human feelings, in the intricate bonds of searching love, longing, dreams and the meaning of life, the poet confirmed his undivided love towards his country.

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 bending

as 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 blood

or 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 longing

For you, that dream, holy, star-filled, infinite.

In the clear evocative sunset

I 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 barbaric

masculine and rough. At the same

time keeps an inner light, a lighthouse

lit with an eternal flame.

Honorable, ingenious craftsmen

have carved its ancient stones

for centuries, so they shine

like crystal. Sometimes weather blown

mountain rock, always with its own

animus. Today, it is by design,

if we chip it, to stop rust

from settling on our minds.

Neither Narek's rustling parchment

nor Toumanian's bright Lori-grown

dialect can sheathe its modern spirit

-not even Derian's silken tone.

But wait. From the iron harvest

our new language will be honed

to hold the deep and homesick thoughts

that are ours, ours alone.

PARTING WORDS

I have put out so many fires in my eyes

And 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 love

And the longing of my a