Siamanto (1878-1915)

English translation by Alice Stone Blackwell

My tears

I was alone with my pure-winged dream in the valleys my sires had trod; 
My steps were light as the fair gazelle's, and my heart with joy was thrilled; 
I ran, all drunk with the deep blue sky, with the light of the glorious days; 
Mine eyes were filled with gold and hopes, my soul with the gods was filled. 

Basket on basket, the Summer rich presented her fruit to me 
From my garden's trees - each kind of fruit that to our clime belongs; 
And then from a willow's body slim, melodious, beautiful, 
A branch for my magic flute I cut in silence, to make my songs. 

I sang; and the brook all diamond bright, and the birds of my ancient home, 
And the music pure from heavenly wells that fills the nights and days, 
And the gentle breezes and airs of dawn, like my sister's soft embrace, 
United their voices sweet with mine, and joined in my joyous lays. 

To-night in a dream, sweet flute, once more I took you in my hand; 
You felt to my lips like a kiss - a kiss from the days of long ago. 
But when those memories of old revived, then straightway failed my breath, 
And instead of songs, my tears began drop after drop to flow. 

Prayer

The swans, in discouragement, have migrated from the poisonous lakes this evening, 
And sad sisters dream of brothers under the prison walls. 
Battles have ended on the blossoming fields of lilies, 
And fair women follow coffins from underground passages, 
And sing, with heads bowed down towards the ground. 

Oh, make haste! Our aching bodies are frozen in these pitiless glooms. 
Make haste towards the chapel, where life will be more merciful, 
The chapel of the graveyard where our brother sleeps! 

An orphan swan is suffering within my soul, 
And there, over newly-buried bodies, 
It rains blood - it pours from mine eyes. 

A crowd of cripples pass along the paths of my heart, 
And with them pass barefooted blind men, 
In the divine hope of meeting some one in prayer. 

And the red dogs of the desert howled all one night, 
After hopelessly moaning over the sands 
For some unknown, incomprehensible grief. 

And the storm of my thoughts ceased with the rain; 
The waves were cruelly imprisoned under the frozen waters; 
The leaves of huge oaks, like wounded birds, 
Dropped with cries of anguish. 

And the dark night was deserted, like the vast infinite; 
And, with the lonely and bloody moon, 
Like a myriad motionless marble statues, 
All the dead bodies of our earth arose to pray for one another. 

The song of the knight

The sun is up, the hour has come for starting, O my steed! 
A moment wait till I pass my foot through thy stirrup glittering clear. 
I read my Aim in thy shining eyes, that know and understand. 
Oh, joy of joys! Oh, blest be thou, my steed, my steed so dear! 

My body still is firm and light with the joy and spring of youth, 
And on thy saddle I shall perch like an eagle, proud and free. 
The golden oats that I gave to thee in plenty, O my steed! 
Have made mad life through thy form flare up; how fleet thy course will be! 

Galloping thou wilt fly along, fly ever upon thy way, 
And sparks from the strokes of thy brazen shoes will blossom as we go past. 
Let us grow drunk with our rapid course like heroes, O my steed! 
And, infinitely winge`d like the wind, drink in the blast! 

The boundless space before thy pace recedes and disappears, 
The sinful cities with all their crimes bow down beneath thy tread. 
Black flocks of crows that tremble thy swiftness to behold 
Are seeking shelter in the clouds, the thick clouds overhead. 

The sad earth seems below us and we up among the stars; 
Thou no abyss nor downward slope dost heed, with eyes aflame; 
There is no obstacle, no rock that can thy flight impede; 
Impatient, fain wouldst thou attain the summit of the Aim. 

My fleet, fleet steed! My idol of snow-white marble fair! 
With all my soul I worship thee! As on our course we fly, 
My dreamy brow is burning with the flames of mine Ideal; 
Oh, spur me onward to my Aim! Slave of thy footsteps I! 

I am the slave of thy fleet steps, child of the hurricane! 
Speed on, athirst for vengeance, O swift, swift steed of mine! 
A needless halt I spurn and hate, with all my anger's might. 
Ours are the summits, and the wreath of victory is thine! 

Thy delicate cream-white body boils with thine ardent fire of life; 
Thy tail is a cataract; rushing down, like a hurricane it blows. 
Within thine eyes, so bright and keen, there shine two flaming stars; 
The rind of thy swift shoes forges fear, as onward our journey goes. 

I told thee that I am thy slave, for liberty athirst. 
Oh, bear me swiftly toward the South, away from this frontier! 
We shall be clothed with suns and blood, beyond the stately heights 
Of Ararat and Arakadz. Speed on, my courser dear! 

I hold no whip within my hand, my courser, thou art free; 
Upon thy back, that glistens like a lily white and fair, 
I only shed sweet touches of my fingers as we go. 
They touch thy bright flesh like a stream of honey dropping there. 

Thou hast no bridle upon thy neck, no bit within thy mouth; 
Enough for me one wave of hair from thy full mane backward flung. 
I have no need of stirrup-irons for my feet to grip thy sides; 
A silver saddle thou hast alone, a saddle with pearls bestrung. 

For my native valleys I yearn, I yearn, the valleys that hold my home, 
But halt thou never, my courser swift, the star-strewn heavens below! 
Away by the mouths of caverns deep like a shadow thou must pass, 
From forests, vineyards and gardens green still farther and farther go. 

Who knows, perchance a maiden fair by the side of a running brook 
Might hand me a cluster of golden grapes, and proffer a draught of wine; 
My soul might understand her, and she like a sister smile on me - 
But I do not wish to be lost in dreams; halt not, swift steed of mine! 

Thou wilt pass by the shadowy bowers of my birthplace, Eden-fair; 
The nightingale, the nightingale, fain would I drink her song! 
The rose-scent, on my pilgrimage, I have dreamed of many a year. 
Oh, how my heart is yearning! But halt not, speed along. 

And in my pathway haply old corpses might arise, 
Their shrouds upon their shoulders, their hands held out to me, 
Approach me - me the wretched! - and breathe upward to mine ear 
Their loves and vengeance ner'er to be forgot - but onward flee! 

I shudder at the ruins and at barren, helpless pangs. 
My courser, near the ashes of the cities make no stay! 
Oh, tears, the tears of others, they choke me without ruth; 
The woe, the griefs of others drive me mad, upon my way! 

Oh, do not halt, my courser, where these corpses scattered lie! 
Fly away from graveyards, where white shades of dead men be. 
I cannot bear, I tell thee, I cannot bear again 
The death of my dear native land with anguished eyes to see! 

Behold the landscape of the place in which I had my birth! 
At sight of it my longing glance with tears grows moist and glows. 
But yet I would not shed them; nay, do not pause or stay, 
My steed, my steed of swiftest flight! My Aim no weakness knows. 

Lo! 'tis Euphrates sounding. Why, river, dost thou roar? 
Thy son is passing. Why so dark the flood thy shore that laves? 
I am thy son. Oh, do not rage! Hast thou forgotten me? 
I with thy current would speed on, and would outstrip thy waves. 

The memory of my childhood draws from me tears of blood; 
A dreamy youth who used to stray along these banks of thine, 
All full of hope, with sunlight mad, and happy with his dreams - 
But ah! what am I saying? Pause not, swift steed of mine! 

Behold the glorious autumn, which vaguely dies around! 
Upon my brow a yellow leaf has fallen like a dream. 
Is it my death it stands for, or the crowning of my faith? 
What matter? On, my neighing steed, sweep onward with the stream! 

Perchance it was the last sere leaf of my ill-omened fate 
That fell upon us even now. What matter? Speed away! 
From the four corners of the land are echoing the words, 
"Ideal, O free-born Ideal, halt not, halt not or stay!" 

I worship thee! Now like a star thou shootest on thy course; 
Thou art as fleet, thou art as free, as is the lightning's flame; 
And through the wind and with the wind like eagles now we soar. 
I am thy knight, I am thy slave; oh, lift me to my Aim! 

Down from the summits of the rocks, the dread and cloudy peaks, 
The cataracts, the cataracts are falling in their might! 
Their currents white are pure, my steed, as thine own snow-white form, 
And their imperious downward sweep is savage as thy flight. 

But why now doth a shudder through all thy body run? 
Oh, what has chanced, my hero? Why do thy looks grow dark? 
Oh, turn thine eyes away from me, thine eyes with trouble filled 
Past the horizons fly along, fly like a wind-borne bark! 

I heard the wailing and the cries, entreaties and laments, 
From ruined huts and cities that reached us on our way. 
But ah! what use in pausing all powerless before pain? 
Our task is to relieve it; then do not halt nor stay. 

Through the death-agony, my steed, we passed with tearless eyes. 
Oh, do not halt! Oh, do not stay! Brave be that heart of thine! 
From this time onward, I will burn Hope's torches blazing bright, 
To halt means death to us; pause not, O gallant steed of mine! 

Aloft on they galloping form, full oft, in our journey ere to-day 
I have heard how thy swift, spark-scattering hoofs, as ever we forward flee, 
Have many and many a time crushed bones, that fell beneath their tread, 
And the skulls with their empty sockets dark gazed at me - didst thou see? 

I tell thee, under thy shoes I heard the skeletons break and crash, 
But I kept silence. My lips are dumb. Halt not, halt not, my steed! 
I will bury my sobs and sighs of grief in my soul's abysmal depths. 
Let nothing live but my anger hot! Pause not, but onward speed! 

Oh pause not, falter not in thy course, wild creature of marble white! 
Tears will not banish the Pain of Life, nor drive out its woe and wrong. 
Nay, the Ideal shall toll, shall toll the bells of glowing wrath. 
The cranes, far flying, will call to us; oh, follow their distant song! 

But where does thy path lead? What is this? My steed, hast thou lost thy mind? 
The ashes! Oh, the desolate plains of ashes and ruins gray! 
Like fog the gray dust rises up to stifle and choke our breath. 
Oh, tear thy way through these frightful mounds, break through them and speed away! 

Lift up thy forehead, lift up thine eyes, let me cover them with my hand! 
Halt not, 'tis the Crimson, the Crimson dread; red blood beneath us lies. 
Across my face to blind mine eyes I have pulled my fluttering scarf; 
Halt not! What good would it do, my steed, to pause here with useless sighs? 

Ah, once, accompanied by my griefs, my lyre shed tears of blood; 
Weeping I hate from this time on; thou only art my soul. 
Thou breathest battle, for glory keen, and I am thy prince, thy slave! 
Thy form was worshipped by glorious Greece. Oh, lift me to my Goal! 

The sound of the wind is like a horn that is winded far away; 
The forests, ranged like troops of war, stood ready as we passed. 
At the wild ringing of thy hoofs, old hopes like giants woke; 
Old laws are crushed, old tears are shed, old sounds are dying fast. 

And in thy flight, at daybreak, on a lofty table-land, 
New giants, new insurgents, new heroes shall spy. 
The sons of suffering are they, who in this hostile age 
Were born in blood, are wroth with blood, and wish in blood to die. 

When we see columns rolling up, armed with the hurricane, 
We by their side will march along the pathway to the Aim. 
Of the glory and the crowning of martyrs I shall sing; 
My lyre will play, that gallant day, my Torches burn and flame! 

The day has dawned, has dawned at last! I am thy knight, thy slave! 
The slope is difficult and steep, but, breathing heavily, 
Thou must fly on - one effort more, amid the fires of morn! 
I am athirst for victory, my noble steed, like thee. 

A few more ringing steps, my steed, and one last bound! and then 
What a procession, what a host, all glad and full of might! 
'Tis Freedom's pioneers; their swords flash out life-giving rays, 
And Brotherhood they celebrate in morning's glorious light. 

Here may's thou halt. Be blest, my steed! Worthy of God art thou! 
Tears fill my soul as mine Ideal I gaze on and admire. 
Thy triumph is the mighty law of beauty infinite. 
Lo, there six centuries are standing, armed with fire! 

I, armed already, will arm thee. O'er my shoulder burns thy torch. 
They like the tempest wish to walk, under the dawning's glow, 
Laden with justice. Oh, the land is barren and athirst! 
Lo, from our flight the giant Hope sparks in the paths will sow! 
 

Courtesy of Haig Utidjian
With miner translation adjustments