The first was the conviction that the sym pathy already felt for the Armenians in their martyrdom at the hands of the Turks would be deepened by an acquaintance with the temper and genius of the people, as shown in their poetry. The second was the fact that Armenian poetic liter ature, while well worthy to be known, was practically inaccessible to English-speaking readers. Of the sixty poems in this book, only two. So far as I can learn, have ever been put into English verse. The majority have never been translated, either in verse or prose. No attempt has been made to imitate the Armenian metres. The aim has been to reproduce the meaning of the original as accurately as possible, in the simplest English forms.