The Wandering Armenian to the Swallow

Armenian Legends and Poems [1916] at sacred-texts.com

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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.

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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.