Samad Vurghun

 

HOW COME YOU'VE GROWN SO OLD SO SOON?

 

Translated by Peter Tempest

 

Fine verse gives rise to joy, it's true,

But poets bow to sorrow, too,

For life in such a way proceeds

That luck our happiness decrees.

Thus everybody wonders why

My head with so much grey is strewn:

“How come you've grown so old so soon?"

A sweet young lady yesterday

Presented me with a bouquet.

She paused and never said a word.

Bui what she meant could be inferred.

This was the question that I read

In eyes as bright as glowing noon:

“How come you've grown so old so soon?"

In hunting- I would take delight

And roam the steppe all day and night,

From mountain-lop I would descend

And, arrow swift, through valleys wend.

I'd often aim at antelopes

But every bullet sang this tune:

^“How come you’ve grown so old so soon?"

My lute that has a thousand strings

Now softly or now loudly sings.

But then the fiend who breaks our heart.

Past master of the liar's art,

Will drop in passing the remark

Maliciously inopportune:

“How come you've grown so old so soon!"

My head is graying, but my heart

Glows just as bright as at the start.

Although with grey my head be strewn

I know for sure that, come what may,

My wife and country shall not say:

"How come you've grown so old so soon!"