And o’er this patriarch, that lost in thought
The midnight plains of Avaraïr has sought?
Whereon our fathers, martyred for the right,
As giants fell, to rise as angels bright!
Com’st thou to spread upon their ashes cold
From yonder snowy cloud a pall of gold?
Or would’st thou bind around thy brow of light
A token of Armenia’s life-blood bright?—
Or art thou still in awestruck wonder lost
To think how Vartan fell, with all his host;—