The Şirket-i Hayriye steamboat was gliding forward, sliding through an open, moving breast of water. Within the steady harmony of the wheels, a small melody would sometimes spread through the comforting breast of the spirit trembling in the silence, and then that continuity of stillness would go on. Now and then a sound brought by the evening winds from farther away, beginning with a hoarse melody, would cut off and begin again, and groaning from the silent gaze of strange cruelty like a moan of silence, would tremble and fade in the radiant horizons of evening, finally finding itself a refuge of tranquility. While a contrary pull of wind drove the steamboat’s black smoke toward the hills sleeping in Emirgan’s dreamlike embrace, I was listening in my soul to the births of separation of a calm and innocent imagination.
As the sublime guardian of my imagination, while thinking of the hymns of supplication to be dedicated to the sincere companionship of night, of this spiritual night of Emirgan, I had come to the small forest of a green little tomb.
All the spiritual poetry of night trembled before the gaze of my thought like a wing of inspiration: Sometimes on this exceptional little hill that serves as a throne of eloquence for you, I now found myself without you in a simple trance. The hills stretching in a long chain of beauties along the Bosphorus had become dormant poetry and dream, and like a maiden of union, calm and tranquil, the sea in the embrace of their sanctuary of love remained so intoxicated with passion in the peace of my soul with the deep, chosen, eternal sublimity of poetry sleeping there. Then the moon, this companion of poetry and nights, filtering down to the depths of the dark seas with its fan of light, and the colored threads of light pouring from the shores became scattered pearls within this vertical ray of light.
Now perhaps you too, sensing a melancholy fragrance from the enchanting scent of this sky of wonders opening under your cold gaze, were in such a measured trance. Suddenly I looked at your house where you often open your shutters to watch the waves. “Ah… perhaps,” I said.
Then, while gazing at the sea again, a rowboat gliding as if flying with a swift, trembling course advanced, shattering the gleams of the moon of nights. At that moment every gleam became a butterfly of hope, every wave a hope of union, every hope a new desire of faithfulness. This was a rowboat, my beloved passed by. Everything became a refuge of dreams, trembling with the excitement of reunion. But why, O enchanting beloved, is there no mirage nest for this melancholy, loving soul with your chosen, poetic spirit?
Ömer Seyfettin
