Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Noe more unto my thoughts appeare,

Att least appeare lesse fayre,

For crazy tempers justly feare

The goodnesse of the ayre;

Whilst your pure Image hath a place

In my impurer Mynde,

Your very shaddow is the glasse

Where my defects I finde.

Shall I not fly that brighter light

Which makes my fyres looke pale,

And put that vertue out of sight

Which makes myne none att all?

No, no, your picture doeth impart

Such valew I not wish

The native worth to any heart

That’s unadorn’d with this.

Though poorer in desert I make

My selfe whilst I admyre,

The fuell which from hope I take

I give to my desire.

If this flame lighted from your Eyes

The subject doe calcine,

A Heart may bee your sacrifice

Too weake to bee your shrine.

Lord when the wise men came from farr,

Led to thy Cradle by a Starr,

Then did the shepherds too rejoyce,

Instructed by буthy Angells voyce:

Blest were the wisemen in their skill,

And shepherds in their harmlesse will.

Wisemen in tracing Natures lawes

Ascend unto the highest cause,

Shepheards with humble fearfulnesse

Walke safely, though their light be lesse:

Though wisemen better know the way

It seems noe honest heart can stray.

Ther is noe merrit in the wise

But love, (the shepheard sacrifice).

Wisemen all wayes of knowledge past,

To th’shepheards wonder come at last:

To know, can only wonder breede,

And not to know, is wonders seede.

A wiseman at the Altar bowes

And offers up his studied vowes

And is received; may not the teares,

Which spring too from a shepheards feares,

And sighs upon his fraylty spent,

Though not distinct, be eloquent?

’Tis true, the object sanctifies

All passions which within us rise,

But since noe creature comprehends

The cause of causes, end of ends,

Hee who himselfe vouchsafes to know

Best pleases his creator soe.

When then our sorrowes wee applye

To our owne wantes and poverty,

When wee looke up in all distresse

And our owne misery confesse,

Sending both thankes and prayers above,

Then though wee doe not know, we love.

Now, by one yeare, time and our frailtie have

Lessened our first confusion, since the Grave

Clos’d thy deare Ashes, and the teares which flow

In these, have no springs, but of solid woe:

Or they are drops, which cold amazement froze

At thy decease, and will not thaw in Prose:

All streames of Verse which shall lament that day,

Doe truly to the Ocean tribute pay;

But they have lost their saltnesse, which the eye

In recompence of wit, strives to supply:

Passions excesse for thee wee need not feare,

Since first by thee our passions hallowed were;

Thou mad’st our sorrowes, which before had bin

Onely for the Successe, sorrowes for sinne,

We owe thee all those teares, now thou art dead,

Which we shed not, which for our selves we shed.

Nor didst thou onely consecrate our teares,

Give a religious tincture to our feares;

But even our joyes had learn’d an innocence,

Thou didst from gladnesse separate offence:

All mindes at once suckt grace from thee, as where

(The curse revok’d) the Nations had one eare.

Pious dissector: thy one houre did treate

The thousand mazes of the hearts deceipt;

Thou didst pursue our lov’d and subtill sinne,

Through all the foldings wee had wrapt it in,

And in thine owne large minde finding the way

By which our selves we from our selves convey,

Didst in us, narrow models, know the same

Angles, though darker, in our meaner frame.

How short of praise is this? My Muse, alas,

Climbes weakly to that truth which none can passe,

Hee that writes best, may onely hope to leave

A Character of all he could conceive

But none of thee, and with mee must confesse,

That fansie findes some checke, from an excesse

Of merit; most, of nothing, it hath spun,

And truth, as reasons task and theame, doth shunne.

She makes a fairer flight in emptinesse,

Than when a bodied truth doth her oppresse.

Reason againe denies her scales, because

Hers are but scales, shee judges by the lawes

Of weake comparison, thy vertue sleights

Her feeble Beame, and her unequall Weights.

What prodigie of wit and pietie

Hath she else knowne, by which to measure thee?

Great soule: we can no more the worthinesse

Of what you were, then what you are, expresse.