Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Fair Amoret is gone astray:

Pursue and seek her, every lover!

I’ll tell the signs by which you may

The wandering shepherdess discover.

Coquet and coy at once her air,

Both studied, though both seem neglected;

Careless she is, with artful care,

Affecting to seem unaffected.

With skill her eyes dart every glance,

Yet change so soon you’d ne’er suspect them;

For she’d persuade they wound by chance,

Though certain aim and art direct them.

She likes herself, yet others hates

For that which in herself she prizes;

And while she laughs at them, forgets

She is the thing she despises.

A soldier and a sailor,

A tinker and a tailor,

Had once a doubtful strife, sir,

To make a maid a wife, sir,

Whose name was buxom Joan.

For now the time was ended,

When she no more intended

To lick her lips at men, sir,

And gnaw the sheets in vain, sir,

And lie o’ nights alone.

The soldier swore like thunder,

He loved her more than plunder,

And shewed her many a scar, sir,

That he had brought from far, sir,

With fighting for her sake.

The tailor thought to please her

With offering her his measure.

The tinker, too, with mettle

Said he could mend her kettle,

And stop up ev’ry leak.

But while these three were prating,

The sailor slyly waiting,

Thought if it came about, sir,

That they should all fall out, sir,

He then might play his part.

And just e’en as he meant, sir,

To loggerheads they went, sir,

And then he let fly at her

A shot ’twixt wind and water,

That won this fair maid’s heart.