Yeghishe Charents - THE RAINBOW

1.

Maiden of shaded light, with Madonna’s eyes,

Tubercular, transparent, embodiment of dreams,

Blue maiden, soul-enticing as milk and agate,

Oh, maiden, made of light and shade…

 

What must I do, what -- to foil my soul’s demise?

Not to let the light of my soul go out in your agate eyes?

What must I do so that the rainbow of three colors

Does not disperse and fade in a far corner of my soul…? 

 

Oh, maiden of shaded light, with Madonna’s eyes,

Tubercular, transparent, embodiment of dreams,

Blue maiden, soul-enticing as milk and agate,

Oh, maiden, shaped by light and shade…

 

 

2.

 

There are three colors in your trancelike land –

Three colors.

Translucent are those colors in your land –

In your soul.

 

You are smiling -- in your luminous eyes

Three glimmers –

As your distant future soars ablaze –

Oh, blue maiden.

 

I see your sky-scraping castles far way,

Your majestic domes.

And I recall a golden fire-flower meteor,

That streaked down yesterday.

 

And I hear in the evening haze,

Serene after the rains,

The twilight bells cackle

And call.

 

And I see over your meadows, lakes,

On your land of light –

Now descends an immaculate,

Untainted blue.

 

And I see in the cerulean sundown,

Blazing yet again –

The gold of the rousing crosses

Of your towering domes…

 

And all at once, like a dream, your land

Pervades my soul --

Your lucid country – a misty sunset

In your gaze…

 

3.

 

Three sparks, three hues, three colors,

That passed on – sister mine,

Having  traced -- in your eyes, in my soul –

A rainbow.

 

 

Yeghishe Charents

 Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Yeghishe Charents - FOR THE NEW YEAR

I am entering a New Year – but for what new thing
Is my sad heart yearning…?  …An enormous wheel --

Inspite of my or your wishes, oh, Leader --Keeps turning round – forever and ever…

And its turns shall be endless… it is all preset --
No more yearning, no more commands – on this planet… 

O, everlasting Nirvana, of thee I fantasize --
At the close of my tempestuous, reckless days…


Yeghishe Charents 1934, Dec. 31,
Night 
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Yeghishe Charents - VISION OF DEATH

Like a taut string of a discarded cello,
My heart trembles with an awesome longing—
It is the summit of my yearnings—the last lyre!
A sturdy rope and two crossed beams.
As the dark derision of my fate, or
An old, miscarried promise that I betrayed—
Behold, the beams of the gallows standing
Proud in the city, waiting for the condemned!
They stand, silent, leaning on each other,
paired pieces of wood,
And in the center quivers, loose and swaying,
A rope, as gray—in these sad days—as the doused
sorrow of my orphaned Nayirian soul.
A flameless twilight has set around me
And a silence without shadow, without egress,
without shiver,
Like the torment of our days, like the fierce
Anguish of death caging my feckless heart.
And the stores, dismal, crumbling, and the people
Who have gathered now around the beams,
So close to that gloomy lyre of death—
What do they seek, so morose and grim?
And who has conjured this ferocious dream?
And who turned the bright mornings of my soul
into starless nightfall,
And a gray rope with two crossed beams?
Perhaps I, who with a moonstruck heart
Brought no fire to you from afar,
And wished that no lyre would sing praises
To the luminous, bright destinyof Nayiri…

Let me go now, and with inconsolable longing,
With a poet’s passion and blaze,
With the dark song of my sullen days
And the last love of my Nayirian dreams,
Proceed into the flickering twilight,
As a hunted kite, as a specter—
Let me give my neck to that cross-beamed
Yearning—and swing, ghastly and chaste…
Let no other victim be claimed,
No other feet come close to the gallows,
And in my eyes of the hanged,
my troubled homeland,
Let them behold your future of lights.
Let them discern in my bulging eyes
of the strangled,
Your coming bright days—
After me, let no other victim be claimed,
Let no shadow approach the gallows…


June 10, 1920 - Yeghishe Charents
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Yeghishe Charents - VISION OF DEATH

Like a taut string of a discarded cello,
My heart trembles with an awesome longing—
It is the summit of my yearnings—the last lyre!
A sturdy rope and two crossed beams.
As the dark derision of my fate, or
An old, miscarried promise that I betrayed—
Behold, the beams of the gallows standing
Proud in the city, waiting for the condemned!
They stand, silent, leaning on each other,
paired pieces of wood,
And in the center quivers, loose and swaying,
A rope, as gray—in these sad days—as the doused
sorrow of my orphaned Nayirian soul.
A flameless twilight has set around me
And a silence without shadow, without egress,
without shiver,
Like the torment of our days, like the fierce
Anguish of death caging my feckless heart.
And the stores, dismal, crumbling, and the people
Who have gathered now around the beams,
So close to that dismal lyre of death—
What do they seek, so morose and grim?
And who has conjured this ferocious dream?
And who turned the bright mornings of my soul
into starless nightfall,
And a gray rope with two crossed beams?
Perhaps I, who with a moonstruck heart
Brought no fire to you from afar,
And wished that no lyre would sing praises
To the luminous, bright destiny
of Nayiri…
Let me go now, and with inconsolable
longing,
With a poet’s feelings and flames,
With the dark song of my sullen days
And the last love of my Nayirian dreams,
Go on into the flickering twilight,
As a hunted kite, as a specter—
Let me give my neck to that cross-beamed
Yearning—and swing, dreadful and chaste…
Let no other victim be claimed,
No other feet come close to the gallows,
And in my eyes of the hanged,
my troubled homeland,
Let them behold your future of lights.
Let them recognize in my bulging eyes
of the hanged,
Your coming bright days—
After me, let no other victim be clamed,
Let no shadow approach the gallows…


Yeghishe Charents
June 10, 1920
Translated by Tatul Sonentz