Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Take, dear, my little sheaf of songs,

For, old or new,

All that is good in them belongs

Only to you;

And, singing as when all was young,

They will recall

Those others, lived but left unsung —

The bent of all.

The big teetotum twirls,

And epochs wax and wane

As chance subsides or swirls;

But of the loss and gain

The sum is always plain.

Read on the mighty pall,

The weed of funeral

That covers praise and blame,

The — isms and the — anities,

Magnificence and shame: —

“O Vanity of Vanities!”

The Fates are subtle girls!

They give us chaff for grain.

And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,

Like bolted death, disdain

At all that heart and brain

Conceive, or great or small,

Upon this earthly ball.

Would you be knight and dame?

Or woo the sweet humanities?

Or illustrate a name?

O Vanity of Vanities!

We sound the sea for pearls,

Or drown them in a drain;

We flute it with the merles,

Or tug and sweat and strain;

We grovel, or we reign;

We saunter, or we brawl;

We answer or we call;

We search the stars for Fame,

Or sink her subterranities;

The legend’s still the same: —

"O Vanity of Vanities!"

Here at the wine one birls,

There some one clanks a chain.

The flag that this man furls

That man to float is fain.

Pleasure gives place to pain:

These in the kennel crawl,

While others take the wall.

She has a glorious aim,

He lives for the inanities.

What come of every claim?

O Vanity of Vanities!

Alike are clods and earls.

For sot, and seer, and swain,

For emperors and for churls,

For antidote and bane,

There is but one refrain:

But one for king and thrall,

For David and for Saul,

For fleet of foot and lame,

For pieties and profanities,

The picture and the frame: —

“O Vanity of Vanities!”

Life is a smoke that curls —

Curls in a flickering skein,

That winds and whisks and whirls,

A figment thin and vain,

Into the vast Inane.

One end for hut and hall!

One end for cell and stall!

Burned in one common flame

Are wisdoms and insanities.

For this alone we came: —

“O Vanity of Vanities!”

Prince, pride must have a fall.

What is the worth of all

Your state’s supreme urbanities?

Bad at the best’s the game.

Well might the Sage exclaim: —

“O Vanity of Vanities!”

Fools may pine, and sots may swill,

Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,

Moralists may scourge and drill,

Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.

Let them whine, or threat, or wail!

Till the touch of Circumstance

Down to darkness sink the scale,

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

What if skies be wan and chill?

What if winds be harsh and stale?

Presently the east will thrill,

And the sad and shrunken sail,

Bellying with a kindly gale,

Bear you sunwards, while your chance

Sends you back the hopeful hail: —

‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance’.

Idle shot or coming bill,

Hapless love or broken bail,

Gulp it (never chew your pill!),

And, if Burgundy should fail,

Try the humbler pot of ale!

Over all is heaven’s expanse.

Gold’s to find among the shale.

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

Dull Sir Joskin sleeps his fill,

Good Sir Galahad seeks the Grail,

Proud Sir Pertinax flaunts his frill,

Hard Sir AEger dints his mail;

And the while by hill and dale

Tristram’s braveries gleam and glance,

And his blithe horn tells its tale: —

‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance’.

Araminta’s grand and shrill,

Delia’s passionate and frail,

Doris drives an earnest quill,

Athanasia takes the veil:

Wiser Phyllis o’er her pail,

At the heart of all romance

Reading, sings to Strephon’s flail: —

‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance’.

Every Jack must have his Jill

(Even Johnson had his Thrale!):

Forward, couples — with a will!

This, the world, is not a jail.

Hear the music, sprat and whale!

Hands across, retire, advance!

Though the doomsman’s on your trail,

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

Boys and girls, at slug and snail

And their kindred look askance.

Pay your footing on the nail:

Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.

Spring at her height on a morn at prime,

Sails that laugh from a flying squall,

Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme —

Youth is the sign of them, one and all.

Winter sunsets and leaves that fall,

An empty flagon, a folded page,

A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball —

These are a type of the world of Age.

Bells that clash in a gaudy chime,

Swords that clatter in onsets tall,

The words that ring and the fames that climb —

Youth is the sign of them, one and all.

Hymnals old in a dusty stall,

A bald, blind bird in a crazy cage,

The scene of a faded festival —

These are a type of the world of Age.

Hours that strut as the heirs of time,

Deeds whose rumour’s a clarion-call,

Songs where the singers their souls sublime —

Youth is the sign of them, one and all.

A staff that rests in a nook of wall,

A reeling battle, a rusted gage,

The chant of a nearing funeral —

These are a type of the world of Age.

Struggle and turmoil, revel and brawl —

Youth is the sign of them, one and all.

A smouldering hearth and a silent stage —

These are a type of the world of Age.

Where are the passions they essayed,

And where the tears they made to flow?

Where the wild humours they portrayed

For laughing worlds to see and know?

Othello’s wrath and Juliet’s woe?

Sir Peter’s whims and Timon’s gall?

And Millamant and Romeo?

Into the night go one and all.

Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?

The plumes, the armours — friend and foe?

The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,

The mantles glittering to and fro?

The pomp, the pride, the royal show?

The cries of war and festival?

The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?

Into the night go one and all.

The curtain falls, the play is played:

The Beggar packs beside the Beau;

The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;

The Thunder huddles with the Snow.

Where are the revellers high and low?

The clashing swords? The lover’s call?

The dancers gleaming row on row?

Into the night go one and all.

Prince, in one common overthrow

The Hero tumbles with the Thrall:

As dust that drives, as straws that blow,

Into the night go one and all.

Above the Crags that fade and gloom

Starts the bare knee of Arthur’s Seat;

Ridged high against the evening bloom,

The Old Town rises, street on street;

With lamps bejewelled, straight ahead,

Like rampired walls the houses lean,

All spired and domed and turreted,

Sheer to the valley’s darkling green;

Ranged in mysterious disarray,

The Castle, menacing and austere,

Looms through the lingering last of day;

And in the silver dusk you hear,

Reverberated from crag and scar,

Bold bugles blowing points of war.

To Garryowen upon an organ ground

Two girls are jigging. Riotously they trip,

With eyes aflame, quick bosoms, hand on hip,

As in the tumult of a witches’ round.

Youngsters and youngsters round them prance and bound.

Two solemn babes twirl ponderously, and skip.

The artist’s teeth gleam from his bearded lip.

High from the kennel howls a tortured hound.

The music reels and hurtles, and the night

Is full of stinks and cries; a naphtha-light

Flares from a barrow; battered and obtused

With vices, wrinkles, life and work and rags,

Each with her inch of clay, two loitering hags

Look on dispassionate — critical — something ’mused.

Though, if you ask her name, she says Elise,

Being plain Elizabeth, e’en let it pass,

And own that, if her aspirates take their ease,

She ever makes a point, in washing glass,

Handling the engine, turning taps for tots,

And countering change, and scorning what men say,

Of posing as a dove among the pots,

Nor often gives her dignity away.

Her head’s a work of art, and, if her eyes

Be tired and ignorant, she has a waist;

Cheaply the Mode she shadows; and she tries

From penny novels to amend her taste;

And, having mopped the zinc for certain years,

And faced the gas, she fades and disappears.

Some three, or five, or seven, and thirty years;

A Roman nose; a dimpling double-chin;

Dark eyes and shy that, ignorant of sin,

Are yet acquainted, it would seem, with tears;

A comely shape; a slim, high-coloured hand,

Graced, rather oddly, with a signet ring;

A bashful air, becoming everything;

A well-bred silence always at command.

Her plain print gown, prim cap, and bright steel chain

Look out of place on her, and I remain

Absorbed in her, as in a pleasant mystery.

Quick, skilful, quiet, soft in speech and touch…

“Do you like nursing?” “Yes, Sir, very much”.

Somehow, I rather think she has a history.

Madam Life’s a piece in bloom

Death goes dogging everywhere:

She’s the tenant of the room,

He’s the ruffian on the stair.

You shall see her as a friend,

You shall bilk him once and twice;

But he’ll trap you in the end,

And he’ll stick you for her price.

With his knee bones at your chest,

And his knuckles in your throat,

You would reason — plead — protest!

Clutching at her petticoat;

But she’s heard it all before,

Well she knows you’ve had your fun,

Gingerly she gains the door,

And your little job is done.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

A child,

Curious and innocent,

Slips from his Nurse, and rejoicing

Loses himself in the Fair.

Thro’ the jostle and din

Wandering, he revels,

Dreaming, desiring, possessing;

Till, of a sudden

Tired and afraid, he beholds

The sordid assemblage

Just as it is; and he runs

With a sob to his Nurse

(Lighting at last on him),

And in her motherly bosom

Cries him to sleep.

Thus thro’ the World,

Seeing and feeling and knowing,

Goes Man: till at last,

Tired of experience, he turns

To the friendly and comforting breast

Of the old nurse, Death.

Sоns of Shannon, Tamar, Trent,

Men of the Lothians, Men of Kent,

Essex, Wessex, shore and shire,

Mates of the net, the mine, the fire,

Lads of the wheel and desk and loom,

Noble and trader, squire and groom,

Come where the bugles of England play,

“Over the hills and far away!”

Southern Cross and Polar Star —

Here are the Britons bred afar;

Serry, O serry them, fierce and keen,

Under the flag of the Empress-Queen;

Shoulder to shoulder down the track,

Where, to the unretreating Jack,

The victor bugles of England play,

“Over the hills and far away!”

What if the best of our wages be

An empty sleeve, a stiff-set knee,

A crutch for the rest of life — who cares,

So long as the One Flag floats and dares?

So long as the One Race dares and grows?

Death — what is death but God’s own rose?

Let but the bugles of England play,

“Over the hills and far away!”

What have I done for you,

England, my England?

What is there I would not do,

England, my own?

With your glorious eyes austere,

As the Lord were walking near,

Whispering terrible things and dear

As the Song on your bugles blown,

England —

Round the world on your bugles blown!

Where shall the watchful Sun,

England, my England,

Match the master-work you’ve done,

England, my own?

When shall he rejoice agen

Such a breed of mighty men

As come forward, one to ten,

To the Song on your bugles blown,

England —

Down the years on your bugles blown?

Ever the faith endures,

England, my England: —

“Take and break us: we are yours,

“England, my own!

“Life is good, and joy runs high

“Between English earth and sky:

“Death is death; but we shall die

“To the Song on your bugles blown,

“England —

“To the stars on your bugles blown!”

They call you proud and hard,

England, my England:

You with worlds to watch and ward,

England, my own!

You whose mailed hand keeps the keys

Of such teeming destinies

You could know nor dread nor ease

Were the Song on your bugles blown,

England —

Round the Pit on your bugles blown!

Mother of Ships whose might,

England, my England,

Is the fierce old Sea’s delight,

England, my own,

Chosen daughter of the Lord,

Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient Sword,

There’s the menace of the Word

In the Song on your bugles blown,

England —

Out of heaven on your bugles blown!