Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Fair fount, that singest in the air,

And spinnest in the sun

Raiment for River Gods to wear,

From dawn till day be done;

Oh! could I learn thy magic art, and share

Thy sympathetic sense, that moulds thee forms

So sweet in calm, so glorious in storms;

Could beauty sway my speech, as thee the air!

Fair fount, thy music swift and strange,

Thy lightnings in mine eyes,

Weave me with every sunny change

Such pleasant phantasies,

That I, methinks, could dream away my years

Peacefully gazing, as thy silver dews

Make harmonies of lovely sounds and hues,

In answer to the soft wind as it veers.

Image of joy and flowing song,

And fancy without measure,

Thy tongue is tuneful all day long,

Thy heart leaps up with pleasure:

Thine is the glorious youth where jocund mind

Weaves tears with laughter, and regrets with hopes,

Whose careless moments, like thy sunny drops,

Are fancy-wooed, as they are by the wind.

But when the months have chained thy heart,

And sealed thy tongue with frost,

An emblem of that day thou art

When all we loved is lost:

The heart of Age is but a frozen thing;

The eyes of Age see but a wintry mist,

By no sweet visions like thy sunbows kissed,

Whence smiles have fled, and tears have ceased to spring.

Low in the East the great Midsummer Dawn

Roll’d up the floodtide of the Ocean Light,

Far off the peaks and mountain snows were bright,

But Darkness swathed the flowers upon the lawn.

Hush’d was the balmy hour, and blest the clime,

And softly thro’ an open casement crept,

Where by her deephair’d boy a mother slept,

Breath of the cradled dews and Summertime.

For into that still chamber stoop’d gold blossom,

Large purple bell, red rose, and woodbine pale;

And she with dreams of wonder did regale

Her phantasy, while he lay on her bosom.

She thought the Fairies, creeping from their cells

In those dusk flowers, with loving eyes benign

Stept down, and, as the Day began to shine,

To low sweet music utter’d blissful spells.

Over the slumbers of that infant boy

They hover’d; some from deathless springs of Morn

And from the chambers of the South had borne

Spirits of mirth, love, laughter, hope, and joy.

Some hunter-like with wreathen horn and plume

In doublet green from greenwood had come forth;

They brought him strength and valour from the North,

And health, and mountain flowers, and spotless bloom.

And some, like Gnomes from ancient mines of Ind,

Rose bow’d with treasure, and such mighty gems

As flame in front of Eastern diadems,

And gave him golden rods to rule mankind.

Some brought him drops from dying heroes’ veins

And holy tears; some robes from Fancy’s treasure,

Beauty, and vials of the wine of Pleasure,

And soft oblivious balms to lull his pains.

Some with the last words of the Wise would fill

His tender soul; some with Apollo’s songs;

Some with proud echoes of Olympian tongues

Weighty in council, mighty over ill.

Then in the middle of the chamber stood

A sovran Shape, but as a mother mild,

And touch’d the forehead of the sleeping child,

And spoke in solemn accents breathed with good.

“Fear not — I am the Mother of the Fays:

One gift of mine is better than their best:

Take thou this only — pine not for the rest —

’Tis more than Wealth, or Power, or length of Days”.

And in her hand an adamant corslet shone —

“Wear this — upon the outer face shall be

The hearts of others shadow’d unto thee”,

She cried — “upon the innermost thine own”.