“Many years later a gentleman came from Stavropol to our city, who gave me some news of the poor wretches.  They had settled in a Cossack village—­he told me the name, but I have forgotten—­where at first they suffered great want; and just as things were going a little better with them, Mairam and Sarkis died of the cholera and Takusch and Toros were left alone.  Soon after, a Russian officer saw Takusch and was greatly pleased with her.  After a few months she married him.  Toros carried on his father’s business for a time, then gave it up and joined the army.  So much I found out from the gentleman from Stavropol.

“Some time later I met again one who knew Takusch.  He told me that she was now a widow.  Her husband had been a drunkard, spent his whole nights in inns, often struck his poor wife, and treated her very badly.  Finally they brought him home dead.  Toros’s neck had been broken at a horse-race and he was dead.  He said also that Takusch had almost forgotten the Armenian language and had changed her faith.

“’That is the history of the Vacant Yard.”

* * * * *

ARMENIAN POEMS

[Metrical Version, by Robert Arnot, M.A.]

* * * * *

ARMENIAN POEMS

A PLAINT

    Were I a springtime breeze,
  A breeze in the time when the song-birds pair,
  I’d tenderly smooth and caress your hair,
    And hide from your eyes in the budding trees.

    Were I a June-time rose,
  I’d glow in the ardor of summer’s behest,
  And die in my passion upon your breast,
    In the passion that only a lover knows.

    Were I a lilting bird,
  I’d fly with my song and my joy and my pain,
  And beat at your lattice like summer-rain,
    Till I knew that your inmost heart was stirred.

    Were I a winged dream,
  I’d steal in the night to your slumbering side,
  And the joys of hope in your bosom I’d hide,
    And pass on my way like a murmuring stream.

    Tell me the truth, the truth,
  Have I merited woe at your tapering hands,
  Have you wilfully burst love’s twining strands,
    And cast to the winds affection and ruth?

    ’Twas a fleeting vision of joy,
  While you loved me you plumed your silvery wings,
  And in fear of the pain that a man’s love brings
    You fled to a bliss that has no alloy.

MUGURDITCH BESHETTASHLAIN.

* * * * *

SPRING IN EXILE

  Wind of the morn, of the morn of the year,
    Violet-laden breath of spring,
    To the flowers and the lasses whispering
  Things that a man’s ear cannot hear,
  In thy friendly grasp I would lay my hand,
  But thou comest not from my native land.