[RCL]

My Georgian friends and I have serious reservations about calling their poetry "Russian" when written in the Soviet Union—as I also gathered the soviet Armenians felt. That was when I was there in the late 70’s. After Rustaveli, the Georgian people generally and my students especially praised Galaction Tabidze, strongly influenced by the Symbolists (no tractors or dams in his work!). I have a booklet of English translations given to me then but can’t lay my hands on it. Mtatsminda is a very high hill in Tbilisi, its top a recreational area, and its terraces the resting place of many Georgian writers. Here’s one I found online:

The Moon over Mtatsminda

My eyes have never seen the moon so lovely as tonight;
In silence wrapt it is the breathless music of the night.
Moonbeams embroider shadows with fine thread of silver light;
O, eyes have never seen the sky so lovely as tonight!

The moon adorned in beams of pearls seems like a queen divine;
The stars like fire-flies tangled in a web about her shine.
The Mtkvari flows a silver stream of lambent beauty bright;
O, eyes have never seen the sky so lovely as tonight!

Here in immortal calm and peace the great and noble sleep
Beneath the soft and dewy turf in many a mouldering heap.
Here Baratashvili came with wild desires to madness wrought,
Oppressed by raging fires of passion, and perplexing thought.

O, could I like the swan pour forth my sould in melody
That melts the mortal heart and breathes of immortality!
Let my free song fly far beyond this world to regions high
Where on the wings of poesy it will glorify the sky.

If death approaching makes the fragrance of the roses sweeter,
Attunes the soul to melodies that make all sadness dearer,
And if that swan's song thus becomes a denizen of heaven,
If in that song she feels that death will be but ecstasy, then, -
Let me like her sing one last song, and in death find delight.
So breathless still and lovely I have never seen the night!

O, mighty dead, let me die here beside you as I sing.
I am a poet, and to eternity my song I fling,
And let it be the fire that warms and lights the spirit's flight.
O, eyes have never seen the sky so lovely as tonight!