Selected Poems of Nâzým Hikmet



INVITATION

Galloping from Far Asia and jutting out
into the Mediterranean like a mare's head
                               this country is ours.

Wrists in blood, teeth clenched, feet bare
and this soil spreading like a silk carpet,
                                this hell, this paradise is ours.

Shut the gates of plutocracy, don't let them open again,
annihilate man's servitude to man,
                                   this invitation is ours..

To live like a tree single and at liberty
and brotherly like the trees of a forest,
                                 this yearning is ours.

                                                            tr. by Fuat Engin