INCENSE
By ZABELLE ESSAYAN
(Born 1878)
The incense at the altar slowly burns
Swayed in the silver censer to and fro;
Around the crucifix it coils and turns,
The brows of saints it wreathes with misty glow.
And tremulous petitions, long drawn out,
Beneath the lofty arches faint away;
To weary eyes the candles round about
Heave as they flicker with their pallid ray.
The sacred columns, grey and mouldering,
Support a veil that stirs with voiceless sobs.
Beneath it, like the incense smouldering,
A woman’s darkened heart in anguish throbs.
Consumed within the censer now, and burned,
The incense through the boundless ether soars.
What Matter was to Fragrance sweet is turned—
The cleansing fire its purity restores.
Nor shall that woman’s smouldering heart be freed,—
Saved from its cold and adamantine shell,—
Till it is melted, tried, and cleansed indeed,
Till the pure flames shall all its dross expel!
THE LITTLE LAKE[1]
By BEDROS TOURIAN
(1852–1872)
Why dost thou lie in hushed surprise,
Thou little lonely mere?
Did some fair woman wistfully
Gaze in thy mirror clear?
Or are thy waters calm and still
Admiring the blue sky,
Where shining cloudlets, like thy foam,
Are drifting softly by?
Sad little lake, let us be friends!
I too am desolate;
I too would fain, beneath the sky,
In silence meditate.
As many thoughts are in my mind
As wavelets o’er thee roam;
As many wounds are in my heart
As thou hast flakes of foam.
But if heaven’s constellations all
Should drop into thy breast,
Thou still wouldst not be like my soul,—
A flame-sea without rest.
There, when the air and thou are calm,
The clouds let fall no showers;
The stars that rise there do not set,
And fadeless are the flowers.
Thou art my queen, O little lake!
For e’en when ripples thrill
Thy surface, in thy quivering depths
Thou hold’st me, trembling, still.
Full many have rejected me:
“What has he but his lyre?”
“He trembles, and his face is pale;
His life must soon expire!”
None said, “Poor child, why pines he thus?
If he beloved should be,
Haply he might not die, but live,—
Live, and grow fair to see.”
None sought the boy’s sad heart to read,
Nor in its depths to look.
They would have found it was a fire,
And not a printed book!
Nay, ashes now! a memory!
Grow stormy, little mere,
For a despairing man has gazed
Into thy waters clear!
Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell.
[1] This and the other translations by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell are reprinted from Armenian Poems, by the translator’s kind permission. [↑]