Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

These, as they change, Almighty Father! these

Are but the varied God. The rolling year

Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring

Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.

Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;

Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;

And ev’ry sense, and ev’ry heart, is joy.

Then comes Thy glory in the summer-months,

With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun

Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;

And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,

And oft, at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,

By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.

Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin’d,

And spreads a common feast for all that lives.

In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and storms

Around Thee thrown, tempest o’er tempest roll’d,

Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind’s wing

Riding sublime, Thou bidd’st the world adore,

And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,

Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,

Yet so delightful mix’d, with such kind art,

Such beauty and beneficence combined,

Shade unperceiv’d so softening into shade,

And all so forming an harmonious whole

That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.

But, wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze

Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand

That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres,

Works in the secret deep, shoots steaming thence

The fair profusion that o’erspreads the Spring,

Flings from the sun direct the flaming day,

Feeds every creature, hurls the tempest forth,

And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,

With transport touches all the springs of life.

Nature, attend! join, every living soul

Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,

In adoration join; and ardent raise

One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes:

Oh! talk of Him in solitary glooms,

Where, o’er the rock, the scarcely-waving pine

Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake th’ astonish’d world, lift high to Heaven

Th’ impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.

His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;

And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;

Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze

Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,

A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice

Or bids you roar or bids your roarings fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,

In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,

Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.

Ye forests, bend; ye harvests, wave to Him—

Breathe your still song into the reaper’s heart

As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.

Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep

Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,

Ye constellations! while your angels strike

Amid the spangled sky the silver lyre.

Great source of day! best image here below

Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide

From world to world the vital ocean round!

On nature write with every beam His praise.

The thunder rolls: be hush’d the prostrate world,

While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.

Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,

Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,

Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns,

And his unsuff’ring kingdom yet will come.

Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song

Burst from the groves; and, when the restless day,

Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,

Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela! charm

The listening shades, and teach the night His praise!

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,

At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all,

Crown the great hymn! In swarming cities vast,

Assembled men, to the deep organ join

The long-resounding voice, oft-breaking clear

At solemn pauses through the swelling bass;

And, as each mingling flame increases each,

In one united ardour rise to heaven.

Or, if you rather choose the rural shade,

And find a fane in every sacred grove,

There let the shepherd’s flute, the virgin’s lay,

The prompting seraph, and the poet’s lyre

Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll.

For me, when I forget the darling theme,

Whether the blossom blows, the summer-ray

Russets the plain, inspiring autumn gleams,

Or winter rises in the blackening east,

Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more,

And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the farthest verge

Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,

Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun

Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam

Flames on th’ Atlantic isles, ’tis naught to me,

Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where He vital spreads there must be joy.

When even at last the solemn hour shall come,

And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,

I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,

Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go

Where Universal Love not smiles around,

Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons;

From seeming evil still educing good,

And better thence again, and better still,

In infinite progression. But I lose

Myself in Him, in Light ineffable!

Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.

Hail! Power Divine, who by thy sole command,

From the dark empty space,

Made the broad sea and solid land

Smile with a heavenly grace.

Made the high mountain and firm rock,

Where bleating cattle stray;

And the strong, stately, spreading oak,

That intercepts the day.

The rolling planets thou madest move,

By thy effective will;

And the revolving globes above

Their destined cours fulfil.

His mighty power, ye thunders, praise,

As through the heavens ye roll;

And his great name, ye lightnings, blaze,

Unto the distant pole.

Ye seas, in your eternal roar,

His sacred praise proclaim;

While the inactive sluggish shore

Re-echoes to the same.

Ye howling winds, howl out his praise,

And make the forests bow;

While through the air, the earth, and seas,

His solemn praise ye blow.

O yon high harmonious spheres,

Your powerful mover sing;

To him your circling course that steers,

Your tuneful praises bring.

Ungrateful mortals, catch the sound,

And in your numerous lays,

To all the listening world around,

The God of nature praise.

Hail, mildly pleasing solitude,

Companion of the wise and good;

But, from whose holy, piercing eye,

The herd of fools, and villains fly.

Oh! how I love with thee to walk,

And listen to thy whisper’d talk,

Which innocence, and truth imparts,

And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,

And still in every shape you please.

Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,

A lone philosopher you seem;

Now quick from hill to vale you fly,

And now you sweep the vaulted sky;

A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,

And warble forth your oaten strain;

A lover now, with all the grace

Of that sweet passion in your face:

Then, calm’d to friendship, you assume

The gentle-looking Hertford’s bloom,

As, with her Musidora, she,

(Her Musidora fond of thee)

Amid the long withdrawing vale,

Awakes the rival’d nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn,

Just as the dew-bent rose is born;

And while meridian fervours beat,

Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;

But chief, when evening scenes decay,

And the faint landskip swims away,

Thine is the doubtful soft decline,

And that best hour of musing thine.

Descending angels bless thy train,

The virtues of the sage, and swain;

Plain Innocence in white array’d,

Before thee lifts her fearless head:

Religion’s beams around thee shine,

And cheer thy glooms with light divine:

About thee sports sweet Liberty;

And rapt Urania sings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell!

And in thy deep recesses dwell!

Perhaps from Norwood’s oak-clad hill,

When meditation has her fill,

I just may cast my careless eyes

Where London’s spiry turrets rise,

Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,

Then shield me in the woods again.

Ethereal race, inhabitants of air,

Who hymn your God amid the secret grove,

Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair,

And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.

Those tender notes, how kindly they upbraid!

With what soft woe they thrill the lover’s heart!

Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid

Who died of love these sweet complainings part.

But hark! that strain was of a graver tone,

On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws;

Or he, the sacred Bard, who sat alone

In the drear waste and wept his people’s woes.

Such was the song which Zion’s children sung

When by Euphrates’ stream they made their plaint;

And to such sadly solemn notes are strung

Angelic harps to soothe a dying saint.

Methinks I hear the full celestial choir

Through Heaven’s high dome their awful anthem raise;

Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire

To swell the lofty hymn from praise to praise.

Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind,

Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the string,

Smit with your theme, be in your chorus joined,

For till you cease my muse forgets to sing.

When Britain first, at heaven’s command,

Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,

And Guardian Angels sang this strain:

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee

Must, in their turn, to tyrants fall,

While thou shalt flourish great and free:

The dread and envy of them all.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke,

As the loud blast that tears the skies

Serves but to root thy native oak.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;

All their attempts to bend thee down

Will but arouse thy generous flame,

But work their woe and thy renown.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine;

All thine shall be the subject main,

And every shore it circles, thine.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

The Muses, still with freedom found,

Shall to thy happy coasts repair.

Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned,

And manly hearts to guard the fair.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!

Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.