Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,

Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,

Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,

A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,

It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never

Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,

And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever

Into the emptiness and silence, into the night.)

They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,

Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin — and therein

God’s little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,

And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal —

Till it was no more visible; then turned again

With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

Heart, you are restless as a paper scrap

That’s tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;

Saying, “She is most wise, patient and kind.

Between the small hands folded in her lap

Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,

And find forgiveness where the shadows stir

About her lips, and wisdom in her strength,

Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!.”.

She will not care. She’ll smile to see me come,

So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.

She’ll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,

And open wide upon that holy air

The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,

Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.

Out of the nothingness of sleep,

The slow dreams of Eternity,

There was a thunder on the deep:

I came, because you called to me.

I broke the Night’s primeval bars,

I dared the old abysmal curse,

And flashed through ranks of frightened stars

Suddenly on the universe!

The eternal silences were broken;

Hell became Heaven as I passed. —

What shall I give you as a token,

A sign that we have met, at last?

I’ll break and forge the stars anew,

Shatter the heavens with a song;

Immortal in my love for you,

Because I love you, very strong.

Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,

Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,

I’ll write upon the shrinking skies

The scarlet splendour of your name,

Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder

Dies in her ultimate mad fire,

And darkness falls, with scornful thunder,

On dreams of men and men’s desire.

Then only in the empty spaces,

Death, walking very silently,

Shall fear the glory of our faces

Through all the dark infinity.

So, clothed about with perfect love,

The eternal end shall find us one,

Alone above the Night, above

The dust of the dead gods, alone.

When the white flame in us is gone,

And we that lost the world’s delight

Stiffen in darkness, left alone

To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,

And through the lips corruption thrust

Has stilled the labour of my breath —

When we are dust, when we are dust! —

Not dead, not undesirous yet,

Still sentient, still unsatisfied,

We’ll ride the air, and shine, and flit,

Around the places where we died,

And dance as dust before the sun,

And light of foot, and unconfined,

Hurry from road to road, and run

About the errands of the wind.

And every mote, on earth or air,

Will speed and gleam, down later days,

And like a secret pilgrim fare

By eager and invisible ways,

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,

Till, beyond thinking, out of view,

One mote of all the dust that’s I

Shall meet one atom that was you.

Then in some garden hushed from wind,

Warm in a sunset’s afterglow,

The lovers in the flowers will find

A sweet and strange unquiet grow

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,

So high a beauty in the air,

And such a light, and such a quiring,

And such a radiant ecstasy there,

They’ll know not if it’s fire, or dew,

Or out of earth, or in the height,

Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,

Or two that pass, in light, to light,

Out of the garden, higher, higher.

But in that instant they shall learn

The shattering ecstasy of our fire,

And the weak passionless hearts will burn

And faint in that amazing glow,

Until the darkness close above;

And they will know — poor fools, they’ll know! —

One moment, what it is to love.

Safe in the magic of my woods

I lay, and watched the dying light.

Faint in the pale high solitudes,

And washed with rain and veiled by night,

Silver and blue and green were showing.

And the dark woods grew darker still;

And birds were hushed; and peace was growing;

And quietness crept up the hill;

And no wind was blowing

And I knew

That this was the hour of knowing,

And the night and the woods and you

Were one together, and I should find

Soon in the silence the hidden key

Of all that had hurt and puzzled me —

Why you were you, and the night was kind,

And the woods were part of the heart of me.

And there I waited breathlessly,

Alone; and slowly the holy three,

The three that I loved, together grew

One, in the hour of knowing,

Night, and the woods, and you —

And suddenly

There was an uproar in my woods,

The noise of a fool in mock distress,

Crashing and laughing and blindly going,

Of ignorant feet and a swishing dress,

And a Voice profaning the solitudes.

The spell was broken, the key denied me

And at length your flat clear voice beside me

Mouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes.

You came and quacked beside me in the wood.

You said, “The view from here is very good!”

You said, “It’s nice to be alone a bit!”

And, “How the days are drawing out!” you said.

You said, “The sunset’s pretty, isn’t it?”

By God! I wish — I wish that you were dead!

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,

Dawdling away their wat’ry noon)

Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,

Each secret fishy hope or fear.

Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;

But is there anything Beyond?

This life cannot be All, they swear,

For how unpleasant, if it were!

One may not doubt that, somehow, Good

Shall come of Water and of Mud;

And, sure, the reverent eye must see

A Purpose in Liquidity.

We darkly know, by Faith we cry,

The future is not Wholly Dry.

Mud unto mud! — Death eddies near —

Not here the appointed End, not here!

But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.

Is wetter water, slimier slime!

And there (they trust) there swimmeth One

Who swam ere rivers were begun,

Immense, of fishy form and mind,

Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;

And under that Almighty Fin,

The littlest fish may enter in.

Oh! never fly conceals a hook,

Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,

But more than mundane weeds are there,

And mud, celestially fair;

Fat caterpillars drift around,

And Paradisal grubs are found;

Unfading moths, immortal flies,

And the worm that never dies.

And in that Heaven of all their wish,

There shall be no more land, say fish.

Down the blue night the unending columns press

In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,

Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow

Up to the white moon’s hidden loveliness.

Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,

And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,

As who would pray good for the world, but know

Their benediction empty as they bless.

They say that the Dead die not, but remain

Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.

I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,

In wise majestic melancholy train,

And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,

And men, coming and going on the earth.

I came back late and tired last night

Into my little room,

To the long chair and the firelight

And comfortable gloom.

But as I entered softly in

I saw a woman there,

The line of neck and cheek and chin,

The darkness of her hair,

The form of one I did not know

Sitting in my chair.

I stood a moment fierce and still,

Watching her neck and hair.

I made a step to her; and saw

That there was no one there.

It was some trick of the firelight

That made me see her there.

It was a chance of shade and light

And the cushion in the chair.

Oh, all you happy over the earth,

That night, how could I sleep?

I lay and watched the lonely gloom;

And watched the moonlight creep

From wall to basin, round the room,

All night I could not sleep.