Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Fair lake, thy lovely and thy haunted shore

Hath only echoes for the poet’s lute;

None may tread there save with unsandalled foot,

Submissive to the great who went before,

Filled with the mighty memories of yore.

And yet how mournful are the records there —

Captivity, and exile, and despair,

Did they endure who now endure no more.

The patriot, the woman, and the bard,

Whose names thy winds and waters bear along;

What did the world bestow for their reward

But suffering, sorrow, bitterness, and wrong? —

Genius! — a hard and weary lot is thine —

The heart thy fuel — and the grave thy shrine.

They gather, with the summer in their hands,

The summer from their distant vallies bringing;

They gather round the church in pious bands,

With funeral array, and solemn singing.

The dead are their companions; many days

Have past since they were laid to their last slumber;

And in the hurry of life’s crowded ways,

Small space has been for memory to cumber.

But now the past comes back again, and death

Asketh its mournful tribute of the living;

And memories that were garnered at the heart,

The treasures kept from busier hours are giving.

The mother kneeleth at a little tomb,

And sees one sweet face shining from beneath it;

She has brought all the early flowers that bloom,

In the small garden round their home, to wreath it.

Friend thinks on friend; and youth comes back again

To that one moment of awakened feeling;

And prayers, such prayers as never rise in vain,

Call down the heaven to which they are appealing.

It is a superstitious rite and old,

Yet having with all higher things connexion;

Prayers, tears, redeem a world so harsh and cold,

The future has its hope, the past its deep affection.