Hairenik Daily (Boston: Massachusetts, 1933):
By William Saroyan
I. EPISTLE
To the man this humble word:
Great soul, I your voice have heard.
If in fact I stand alone,
My clamor will the wrong atone.
Before your own my voice is small:
You sing, while my poor words must fall
Like so much sodden clay or mud
Into the rush of thoughtÕs swift flood.
Yours is the flowing of the ancient soul.
While mine is but the lisping of the mind.
Yet if music the deaf cannot make whole,
The print shall give hearing to those not blind.
II. WHILE HE SINGS ŌMAYR ARAKSIEĶ
No art is lost and yours shall never be,
For when you sing, you sing at least for me.
And when at last my mortal day is done
Remember, friend, that I shall leave a son,
Tutored to seek the glory of his race
(Wherever he may go, to what strange place)
In your clear voice, which is the very pith
Of our old legend and our deathless myth.
And if the mother of his son shall be
A daughter of our ancient family,
I think sheÕll teach him in his early years
That when you sing, though he be moved to tears,
He will yet know how once in strength we stood,
And stand forever in her motherhood.
Euphrates, which is mine, doth flow or not,
There where its mountains feed its rush and roar.
And through those hills and plains by most forgot,
And by these eyes not seen, for evermore
Euphrates swells and rolls majestically,
Or is now dry, and arid myth, a tale.
If this is so, the truth, so let it be.
In me Euphrates is; nor can it fail
To ride its bed and cool its burning earth
With drink, and mine as well. Of wing no flight
May end in graceless crash. No spiritÕs mirth
May burn and die by heavenÕs harshest light.
Euphrates flows, however it may be
That but in dreams these eyes its grace may see.
San Francisco, California
Lake Van, O inland sea my father saw
With stinging eyes and steadfast blurring stare,
Our hearts unite in raceÕs filial prayer.
His blood to mine restores that fearful awe
He felt as he from homelandÕs shore turned west,
Smothering harsh and violent farewell.
O lake and symbol of our grief, they spell
With growing strength denies all easy rest.
He from his spiritÕs soil took lasting leave,
From heavens that his legend had sustained,
And though he left and died, there he remained
In his young ghost, above thy cool grieve,
Lament and weep in mists and pouring rains,
O Lake and pool of all your mortal pains.
San Francisco, California
April 7, 1933