Montenegro, a land of high mountains, blue sea, wondrous light and a dazzling history, has been and remains a constant and inexhaustible inspiration for many poets. Its people can be happy and proud of Tennyson, Pushkin, Njegoš, Vysotsky and other poets who have sung its praises.

 

Montenegrins, do you see this wonder?

Fifty full years I've spun of my life's yarn.

I've always spent my summers on Lovćen

and have clambered up to this high summit.

Hundreds of times I have gazed at the clouds

sailing in flocks from the sea down yonder

and covering this entire mountain range.

I've watched them float and rush now here, now there

with lightning bolts and with mighty rumble

and with the roar of terrible thunder.

Hundreds of times I have rested up here,

warming myself in the sun peacefully.

I've watched often the lightning beneath me,

listened to the thunder rending the sky,

as in the din of the frightening hail

the clouds below make everything barren

- but this wonder I have yet to witness!

Do you notice, upon your faith in God,

how much there is of the sea and the coast,

of proud Bosnia and Hercegovina,

Albania way down there by the sea,

how much there is of our Montenegro?

The clouds cover all these lands evenly!

The thunder's roar can be heard all around,

all beneath us the lightning keeps flashing,

but we alone are lying in the sun.

The Mountain Wreath (Montenegrin: Gorski vijenac)

 

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

Montenegro (1877)

 

They rose to where their sovran eagle sails,

They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height,

Chaste, frugal, savage, armed by day and night

Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales

Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails,

And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight

Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight

By thousands down the crags and through the vales.

O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne

Of freedom! warriors beating back the swarm

Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years,

Great Tsernogora! never since thine own

Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm

Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers.

 

DON MARQUIS

Nicholas of Montenegro (1912)

 

He speaks as straight as his rifles shot,

As straight as a thrusting blade,

Waiting the deed that shall trouble the truce

His savage guns have made.

"You have dared the wrath of a dozen states,"

Was the challenge that he heard;

"We can die but once!" said the grim old King

As he gripped his mountain sword.

"For I paid in blood for the town I took,

The blood of my brave men slain,--

And if you covet the town I took

You must buy it with blood again!"

Stern old King of the stark, black hills,

Where the lean, fierce eagles breed,

Your speech rings true as your good sword rings--

And you are a king indeed!

Dreams and Dust, 1915)

 

 

ROBERT LAURENCE BINYON

Montenegro

 

Coiled in shadow, the serpent seas

Engirdle perilous hills sublime:

By tortuous, steep degrees

Toward the morn I climb.

 

Before me the mountain soaring vast

Secludes the bright east; cold the air

Descends from ridges, massed

In peaks, snowily fair.

 

But pale in the northern distance blushes

On sparkling ranges a light austere;

Tingeing the shade, it flushes

Edge and barrier sheer.

 

Cattaro roofs and Cattaro quay

Grow faint and delicate; ships that ride

On the dense blue slumbering sea

Dwindle; on either side

 

Cattaro roofs and Cattaro quay

Grow faint and delicate; ships that ride

On the dense blue slumbering sea

Dwindle; on either side

 

From mirroring gulfs the mountains bare

Are mapped to the heaven, strange as a dream;

The Adriatic afar

Trembles, a molten gleam:

 

Till the sun salutes me, met with him

On the naked summit; closed behind,

That vision of countries dim

Pales and fades from the mind.

 

Now drinking the eager lofty air,

The spirit leaps, as the eyes behold

Valleys severely fair,

Freedom's fortress of old.

 

Young, stern soldiers in rich attire,

Haughtily moving with silent pace

And eyes of a tranquil fire;

Sons of a tameless race;

 

Aged mothers, bowed with toil,

Old men, bearded and gray, are here.

Plants of a stubborn soil

That knows not the seed of fear.

 

O Mountain, mother of men, that bearest

Heroes; foster--mother of fame!

I hail thee; well thou wearest

Thy dark, invincible name.

 

Thou plantest the footstep firm, and the heart

In the breast strengthenest, hardy to try

Peril, and play its part

With full, unwavering eye.

 

At mighty breasts of the ancient hills

Nourished, thy sons in their veins yet keep

The force that feeds and fills

Torrents, to dance and leap.

 

Trees that with clenchéd root possess

Their rocky beds, oak and pine,

Alone thou endurest; nor less

Permittest in children of thine.

 

 

ALBERY ALLSON WHITMAN

Sonnet - The Montenegro

Undaunted watcher of the mountain track,

Tho' surging cohorts like a sea below,

Against thy cliff-walled homes their thunders throw;

Proud, whilst thy rocky fastness answers back

 

The fierce, long menace of the Turk's attack,

Thy eagle ken above the tumult flies,

The hostile plain spurns, and its prowess black,

And lights on strongholds terraced in the skies;

 

There thou wilt quicker than the roe-buck bound,

If bolder dangers mount to force thy pass;

But not till thou a signal brave hast wound,

That hears responses from each peak around,

 

And calls thy comrade clans-in-arms, to mass

In high defence, when battle stern begins —

Then who can conquer the Montenegrins.

 

VLADIMIR SEMJONOVIČ VISOCKI

The Montenegrins

 

The water, by the handful catered,

The Montenegrins rushed to hold -

Drink now: there is no water later;

Live now till thirty years old;

 

An honored death is one to merit

Midst matted blades and bullet rain;

And take along before you’re buried

A couple enemies you’ve slain.

 

Until the trigger’s worn and broken,

Shoot from the saddle and the knee;

No Montenegrin could be taken

A captive: he just wouldn’t be.

 

But they all yearned to live to hundred

And then some more - so they could be

Where skies and mountains are abundant

And overflowing is the sea.

 

A handful of the living water

Six hundred thousand parts would mold...

And yet the Montenegrins fought to

Live long till thirty years old.

 

Their wives had water for their mourning

And in the mountains hid from harm

Their children, till there came a morning

When they’d have grown to carry arm.

 

They quietly dressed to mourn; and, soundless,

Shed tears upon the grassy ground,

And then put off the fire in silence,

So enemies would hear no sound.

 

Black as the land that gives a bounty

From all their grief the women turned;

Black as the women was the mountain,

That set the fire on to be burned.

 

Oh that was true avenge - makes little

Sense to burn self without intent -

Self-burning of the mounts and people

Was a revolting discontent.

 

Like God’s damnation never aging,

Like father’s vengeance for his son,

Five centuries the fires kept raging,

The Montenegrins’ hearts flamed on,

 

The Tzars and servants came, departed -

But death in fight is always gold.

The Montenegrins disregarded

Those over thirty years old.

 

© Eugenie Sarkisyants. Translation, 2011