Alas, how shall the minstrel bear thy lightning gleams that pierce his heart? No pact or treaty wilt thou make—a monarch absolute thou art. If thou dost meet with mountains high like wax thou meltest them away; If cities fair lie on thy path, their pride in ruins thou dost lay. In sooth, no compact wilt thou make with him who sings these strains to thee: Sayat Nova no credit hath when he would tell his pains to thee. THE WANDERING ARMENIAN TO THE SWALLOW By C. A. DODOCHIAN 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 grey, 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! Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell. THE CHRIST-CHILD By SAINT GREGORY OF NAREK (951–1009) The lips of the Christ-child are like to twin leaves; They let roses fall when he smiles tenderly. The tears of the Christ-child are pearls when he grieves; The eyes of the Christ-child are deep as the sea. Like pomegranate grains are the dimples he hath, And clustering lilies spring up in his path. Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell. THE CASTLE OF ANOUSH [17] By RAFFI “Anoush” in name, but full of bitterness in reality. On one side of the road that leads from Tisbon to Ecbatana stands a steep, pointed crag. Its massive base rises from an extensive bed of rock, on which Nature has placed it as on a firm pedestal. Not a handful of earth is to be found upon its denuded surface. Not a single plant grows on its hard, stony sides. The burning rays of the southern sun have dried and baked it like an earthen vessel in the potter’s ever-burning fire. From time immemorial that rock has ever been so.