Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Adieu! oh, in the heart’s recess how wildly

Echo those painful accents of despair—

And spite our promise given to bear it mildly;

We little knew how hard it was to bear

A destiny so dark: how hard to sever

Hearts linked as ours, hands joined as now I grasp thee

In trembling touch: oh! e’er we part forever,

Once more unto my heart love’s victim let me clasp thee!

It is my love’s last echo — lone and lonely

My heart goes forth to seek another shrine,

Where it may worship pronely, deeming only

Such images as thee to be divine—

It is the echo of the last link breaking,

For still that link held out while lingering near thee—

A secret joy although with heart-strings aching

To breathe the air you breathed — to see, to hear thee.

And this link now must break — our paths obliquing

May never meet again — oh! say not never—

For while thus speaking, still my soul is seeking

Some hope our parting may not be forever—

And like the drowning straggler on the billow,

Or he that eager watches for the day,

With throbbing brain upon a sleepless pillow—

’Tis catching at the faintest feeblest ray.

Now faint and fainter growing, from thee going,

Seems every hope more vague and undefined—

Oh! as the fiend might suffer when bestowing

A last look on the heaven he left behind:

Or as earth’s first-born children when they parted

Slowly, despairingly, from Eden’s bowers,

Looked back with many a sigh — though broken-hearted,

Less hopeless was their future still than ours.

If we have loved — if in our hearts too blindly

We have enthroned that element divine—

In this, at least, hath fate dealt with us kindly;

Our mutual images have found a shrine—

An altar for our mutual sacrifice:

And spite this destiny that bids us sever,

Within our hearts that fire never dies—

In mine, at least, ’twill burn and worship on forever.

Thee not upbraiding — thou has not deceived me—

For from the first I knew thy compromise—

No, Guadalupe — this hath never grieved me—

I won thy love — so spoke thy lips and eyes —

The consolation of this proud possessing

Should almost change my sorrow into bliss:

I have thy heart — enough for me of blessing—

Another may take all since I am lord of this.

Why we have torn our hearts and hands asunder—

Why we have given o’er those sweet caresses—

The world without will coldly guess and wonder—

Let them guess on, what care we for their guesses!

The secret shall be ours, as ours the pain—

A secret still unheeding friendship’s pleading:

What though th’ unfeeling world suspect a stain,

But little fears the world a heart with anguish bleeding.

’Tis better we should never meet again—

Our love’s renewing were but thy undoing:

When I am gone, time will subdue thy pain,

And thou wilt yield thee to another’s wooing—

For me, I go to seek a name in story—

To find a future brighter than the past—

Yet ’midst my highest, wildest dreams of glory,

Sweet thoughts of thee will mingle to the last.

And though this widowed heart may love another—

For living without love, it soon would die—

There will be moments when it cannot smother

Thy sweet remembrance with a passing sigh.

Amidst the ashes of its dying embers

For thee there will be found one deathless thought;

Yes, dearest lady! while this heart remembers,

Believe me, thou shall never be forgot.

Once more farewell! Oh it is hard to yield thee,

To lose for life, forever, thing so fair!

How bright a destiny it were to shield thee—

Yet since I am denied the husband’s care,

This grief within my breast here do I smother—

Forego thy painful sacrifice to prove,

That I have been, what never can another,

The hero of thy heart, my own sweet victim love.

Save woman, there is nought so beautiful,

As a brave ship, when coming down the wind,

With all her rigging taut — her courses full —

Leaping the sea and lashing far behind

The sparkling foam! — her upper spars defined

Like the pencilling, upon the azure sky!

Now bowing down to ocean, half inclined,

To kiss the tinted wave that ripples by, —

Then proudly soaring back, to heaven’s canopy.

All feminine! — the well developed round

Of the smooth bows, as virgin’s breast rebelling

Against the silken drapery, that’s bound,

Loosely, to all conceal, yet half revealing

The soft voluptuous beauties, ever stealing

From out their sanctuary: — to the breast

Of the fair ship, gently, but proudly swelling

Above te billow’s bright and wavy crest

Reveals her rounded form by the blue wave caressed.

All feminine! — yet strong as female beauty

When loveliness on her capricious throne

Dictates to willing slaves the path of duty

And claims their feel devotion all her own.

The race horse like a meteor gliding on —

The hunter dashing wildly at the leap

The war-horse madly charging through the dun

And sulphery cloud, ’midst shot, and bayonet’s sweep —

May liken a brave ship careering o’er the deep.

This to a landsman cannot be defined —

He sees no beauty in the snow white sail

Spread like an eagle’s wing to grasp the wind! —

This then to him were but an idle tale,

But to the tar who’s weathered many a gale

And storm and squall, — who’s drank the briny foam

And tempest scud; these words mayhap won’t fail

To fix and bring the well loved image home,

In which o’er ocean’s breast he wildly used to roam.