Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

A street there is in Paris famous,

For which no rhyme our language yields,

Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is —

The New Street of the Little Fields.

And here’s an inn, not rich and splendid,

But still in comfortable case;

The which in youth I oft attended,

To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is —

A sort of soup or broth, or brew,

Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes,

That Greenwich never could outdo;

Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron,

Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace:

All these you eat at Terré’s tavern,

In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.

Indeed, a rich and savory stew ’tis;

And true philosophers, methinks,

Who love all sorts of natural beauties,

Should love good victuals and good drinks.

And Cordelier or Benedictine

Might gladly, sure, his lot embrace,

Nor find a fast-day too afflicting,

Which served him up a Bouillabaisse.

I wonder if the house still there is?

Yes, here the lamp is, as before;

The smiling red-checked écaillère is

Still opening oysters at the door.

Is Terré still alive and able?

I recollect his droll grimace:

He’d come and smile before your table,

And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse.

We enter — nothing’s changed or older.

‘How’s Monsieur Terré, waiter, pray?’

The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder —

‘Monsieur is dead this many a day’.

‘It is the lot of saint and sinner,

So honest Terré’s run his race’.

‘What will Monsieur require for dinner?’

‘Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse?’

‘Oh, oui, Monsieur,’ ’s the waiter’s answer;

‘Quel vin Monsieur désire-t-il?’

‘Tell me a good one’. — ‘That I can, Sir:

The Chambertin with yellow seal’.

‘So Terré’s gone,’ I say, and sink in

My old accustom’d corner-place

He’s done with feasting and with drinking,

With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse’.

My old accustom’d corner here is,

The table still is in the nook;

Ah! vanish’d many a busy year is

This well-known chair since last I took.

When first I saw ye, cari luoghi,

I’d scarce a beard upon my face,

And now a grizzled, grim old fogy,

I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.

Where are you, old companions trusty

Of early days here met to dine?

Come, waiter! quick, a flagon crusty —

I’ll pledge them in the good old wine.

The kind old voices and old faces

My memory can quick retrace;

Around the board they take their places,

And share the wine and Bouillabaisse.

There’s Jack has made a wondrous marriage;

There’s laughing Tom is laughing yet;

There’s brave Augustus drives his carriage;

There’s poor old Fred in the Gazette;

On James’s head the grass is growing;

Good Lord! the world has wagged apace

Since here we set the Claret flowing,

And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.

Ah me! how quick the days are flitting!

I mind me of a time that’s gone,

When here I’d sit, as now I’m sitting,

In this same place — but not alone.

A fair young form was nestled near me,

A dear, dear face looked fondly up,

And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me —

There’s no one now to share my cup.

I drink it as the Fates ordain it.

Come, fill it, and have done with rhymes:

Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it

In memory of dear old times.

Welcome the wine, whate’er the seal is;

And sit you down and say your grace

With thankful heart, whate’er the meal is.

— Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse!

How spake of old the Royal Seer?

(His text is one I love to treat on.)

This life of ours he said is sheer

Mataiotes Mataioteton.

O Student of this gilded Book,

Declare, while musing on its pages,

If truer words were ever spoke

By ancient, or by modern sages!

The various authors’ names but note,

French, Spanish, English, Russians, Germans:

And in the volume polyglot,

Sure you may read a hundred sermons!

What histories of life are here,

More wild than all romancers’ stories;

What wondrous transformations queer,

What homilies on human glories!

What theme for sorrow or for scorn!

What chronicle of Fate’s surprises —

Of adverse fortune nobly borne,

Of chances, changes, ruins, rises!

Of thrones upset, and sceptres broke,

How strange a record here is written!

Of honors, dealt as if in joke;

Of brave desert unkindly smitten.

How low men were, and how they rise!

How high they were, and how they tumble!

O vanity of vanities!

O laughable, pathetic jumble!

Here between honest Janin’s joke

And his Turk Excellency’s firman,

I write my name upon the book:

I write my name — and end my sermon.

O Vanity of vanities!

How wayward the decrees of Fate are;

How very weak the very wise,

How very small the very great are!

What mean these stale moralities,

Sir Preacher, from your desk you mumble?

Why rail against the great and wise,

And tire us with your ceaseless grumble?

Pray choose us out another text,

O man morose and narrow-minded!

Come turn the page-I read the next,

And then the next, and still I find it.

Read here how Wealth aside was thrust,

And Folly set in place exalted;

How Princes footed in the dust,

While lackeys in the saddle vaulted.

Though thrice a thousand years are past,

Since David’s son, the sad and splendid,

The weary King Ecclesiast,

Upon his awful tablets penned it, —

Methinks the text is never stale,

And life is every day renewing

Fresh comments on the old old tale

Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin.

Hark to the Preacher, preaching still

He lifts his voice and cries his sermon,

Here at St. Peter’s of Cornhill,

As yonder on the Mount of Hermon;

For you and me to heart to take

(O dear beloved brother readers)

To-day as when the good King spake

Beneath the solemn Syrian cedars.

On Brady’s tower there grows a flower,

It is the loveliest flower that blows,—

At Castle Brady there lives a lady,

(And how I love her no one knows);

Her name is Nora, and the goddess Flora

Presents her with this blooming rose.

“O Lady Nora”, says the goddess Flora,

“I’ve many a rich and bright parterre;

In Brady’s towers there’s seven more flowers,

But you’re the fairest lady there:

Not all the county, nor Ireland’s bounty,

Can projuice a treasure that’s half so fair!”

What cheek is redder? sure roses fed her!

Her hair is maregolds, and her eye of blew.

Beneath her eyelid, is like the vi’let,

That darkly glistens with gentle jew!

The lily’s nature is not surely whiter

Than Nora’s neck is, — and her arrums too.

“Come, gentle Nora”, says the goddess Flora,

My dearest creature, take my advice,

There is a poet, full well you know it,

Who spends his lifetime in heavy sighs, —

Young Redmond Barry, ‘tis him you’ll marry,

If rhyme and raisin you’d choose likewise”.

Werther had a love for Charlotte

Such as words could never utter;

Would you know how first he met her?

She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,

And a moral man was Werther,

And, for all the wealth of Indies,

Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,

And his passion boiled and bubbled,

Till he blew his silly brains out,

And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body

Borne before her on a shutter,

Like a well-conducted person,

Went on cutting bread and butter.

Some love the matin-chimes, which tell

The hour of prayer to sinner:

But better far’s the mid-day bell,

Which speaks the hour of dinner;

For when I see a smoking fish,

Or capon drown’d in gravy,

Or noble haunch on silver dish,

Full glad I sing my ave.

My pulpit is an alehouse bench,

Whereon I sit so jolly;

A smiling rosy country wench

My saint and patron holy.

I kiss her cheek so red and sleek,

I press her ringlets wavy,

And in her willing ear I speak

A most religious ave.

And if I’m blind, yet heaven is kind,

And holy saints forgiving;

For sure he leads a right good life

Who thus admires good living.

Above, they say, our flesh is air,

Our blood celestial ichor:

Oh, grant! mid all the changes there,

They may not change our liquor!