Classic Poem

THE TARTAR SONG

I

" He is gone to the desert land!
I can see the shining mane
Of his horse on the distant plain,
As he rides with his Kossak band!

" Come back, rebellious one!
Let thy proud heart relent;
Come back to my tall, white tent,
Come back, my only son!

" Thy hand in freedom shall
Cast thy hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.

" I will give thee leave to stray
And pasture thy hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.

" I will give thee my coat of mail,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid;
Will not all this prevail? "

II

" This hand no longer shall
Cast my hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal

" I will no longer stray
And pasture my hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.

" Though thou give me thy coat of mail,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid,
All this cannot prevail.

" What right hast thou, O Khan,
To me, who am mine own,
Who am slave to God alone,
And not to any man?

" God will appoint the day
When I again shall be
By the blue, shallow sea,
Where the steel-bright sturgeons play.

" God, who doth care for me,
In the barren wilderness,
On unknown hills, no less
Will my companion be.

" When I wander lonely and lost
In the wind; when I watch at night
Like a hungry wolf, and am white
And covered with hoar-frost;

" Yea, wheresoever I be,
In the yellow desert sands,
In mountains or unknown lands,
Allah will care for me! "

III

Then Sobra, the old, old man, —
Three hundred and sixty years
Had he lived in this land of tears,
Bowed down and said, " O Khan!

" If you bid me, I will speak
There's no sap in dry grass,
No marrow in dry bones! Alas,
The mind of old men is weak!

" I am old, I am very old:
I have seen the primeval man,
I have seen the great Genghis Khan,
Arrayed in his robes of gold.

" What I say to you is the truth;
And I say to you, O Khan,
Pursue not the star-white man,
Pursue not the beautiful youth.

" Him the Almighty made,
And brought him forth of the light
At the verge and end of the night,
When men on the mountain prayed.

" He was born at the break of day,
When abroad the angels walk;
He hath listened to their talk,
And he knoweth what they say.

" Gifted with Allah's grace,
Like the moon of Ramazan
When it shines in the skies, O Khan,
Is the light of his beautiful face.

" When first on earth he trod,
The first words that he said
Were these, as he stood and prayed,
" There is no God but God!"

" And he shall be king of men,
For Allah hath heard his prayer,
And the Archangel in the air,
Gabriel, hath said, Amen! "