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Beneath the lake of Bazaleti
A golden cradle gleams;
Around it blooms a wondrous garden —
A paradise it seems.
This hidden bower, thus veiled by waters,
Dwells in eternity;
It knows no time, nor sun, nor moonlight,
No withered mortality.
No biting frosts, no scorching sun
Wither its bloom away,
For in this realm of golden shade
Eternal spring holds sway.
Within the bosom of that lake
A golden cradle lies;
No mortal yet has ever dared
To reach this paradise.
With streaming hair, the sirens fair
About this cradle throng;
They sweetly hum and weave love's snare
In soft delusive song.
'Tis said that glorious Queen Tamari
Had placed the cradle so,
And o'er it poured the tears a nation
Had shed in anguished woe.
But none can say what nameless babe
Is cradled there below,
Or why a nation's tears conceal
It there in endless flow...
Perhaps it holds and cradles one
Whose name none dares to speak —
A nation's hope, whom Georgians all
In silent longing seek,
If it be so, then happy he,
Whose fame will ever glow,
Whose puissant hand will be the first
To grasp that crib below!
If it be so, then happy she,
The mother blest, sublime,
Whose hallowed breast will be the first
To feed that babe divine!
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Deep down in Bazalethi's lake,
'Tis said a golden cradle lies,
And there beneath the welling waves,
An orchard blooms, and never dies.
That garden gay is always green,
Its blossoms never know decay;
The changing seasons of this earth,
That region rare need not obey.
Nor summer's sun, nor winter's cold,
Can harm that em'rald orchard gay
For, in those sunlit glades of gold,
Eternal spring doth hold her sway.
In that fair garden's very heart
The golden cradle aye doth rest,
There man hath never dared to go —
That spot has never known a guest
Translated by Marjory and Oliver Wardrops
Ganatleba Publishers
Tbilisi 1987
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