How cool and sweet, O breeze of morn,
Thou stirrest in the air,
Caressing soft the dewy flowers,
The young girl’s clustering hair!
But not my country’s breeze thou art.
Blow past! thou canst not touch my heart.
How sweetly and how soulfully
Thou singest from the grove,
O bird, while men admire thy voice
In tender hours of love!
But not my country’s bird thou art.
Sing elsewhere! Deaf to thee my heart.
With what a gentle murmur,
O brook, thy current flows,
Reflecting in its mirror clear
The maiden and the rose!
But not my native stream thou art.
Flow past! thou canst hot charm my heart
Though over ruins linger
Armenia’s bird and breeze,
And though Armenia’s turbid stream
Creeps ’mid the cypress-trees,
They voice thy sighs, and from my heart.
My country, they shall not depart!
Mugurditch Beshiktashlian (1829 - 1868) Armenia
Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell
Source: Armenian Poems Rendered into English verse by Alice Stone Blackwell, Robert Chambers, 1917 [on ArmenianHouse.org]
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