Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

A mountain’s giddy height I sought,

Because I could not find

Sufficient vague and mighty thought

To fill my mighty mind;

And as I wandered ill at ease,

There chanced upon my sight

A native of Silurian seas,

An ancient Trilobite.

So calm, so peacefully he lay,

I watched him even with tears:

I thought of Monads far away

In the forgotten years.

How wonderful it seemed and right,

The providential plan,

That he should be a Trilobite,

And I should be a Man!

And then, quite natural and free

Out of his rocky bed,

That Trilobite he spoke to me

And this is what he said:

‘I don’t know how the thing was done,

Although I cannot doubt it;

But Huxley — he if anyone

Can tell you all about it:

‘How all your faiths are ghosts and dreams,

How in the silent sea

Your ancestors were Monotremes —

Whatever these may be;

How you evolved your shining lights

Of wisdom and perfection

From Jelly-Fish and Trilobites

By Natural Selection.

‘You’ve Kant to make your brains go round,

Hegel you have to clear them,

You’ve Mr Browning to confound,

And Mr Punch to cheer them!

The native of an alien land

You call a man and brother,

And greet with hymn-book in one hand

And pistol in the other!

‘You’ve Politics to make you fight

As if you were possessed;

You’ve cannon and you’ve dynamite

To give the nations rest:

The side that makes the loudest din

Is surest to be right,

And oh, a pretty fix you’re in!’

Remarked the Trilobite.

‘But gentle, stupid, free from woe

I lived among my nation,

I didn’t care — I didn’t know

That I was a Crustacean.[76]

I didn’t grumble, didn’t steal,

I never took to rhyme:

Salt water was my frugal meal,

And carbonate of lime’.

Reluctantly I turned away,

No other word he said;

An ancient Trilobite, he lay

Within his rocky bed.

I did not answer him, for that

Would have annoyed my pride:

I merely bowed, and raised my hat,

But in my heart I cried: —

‘I wish our brains were not so good,

I wish our skulls were thicker,

I wish that Evolution could

Have stopped a little quicker;

For oh, it was a happy plight,

Of liberty and ease,

To be a simple Trilobite

In the Silurian seas!’