Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Here in the marshland, past the battered bridge,

One of a hundred grains untimely sown,

Here, with his comrades of the hard-won ridge,

He rests, unknown.

His horoscope had seemed so plainly drawn:

School triumphs earned apace in work and play;

Friendships at will; then love’s delightful dawn

And mellowing day.

Home fostering hope; some service to the State;

Benignant age; then the long tryst to keep

Where in the yew-tree shadow congregate

His fathers sleep.

Was here the one thing needful to distil

From life’s alembic, through this holier fate,

The man’s essential soul, the hero-will?

We ask: and wait.

We readers of the older West

In wonder turn his Eastern page

Who preaches to a self-loved age

That self-forget fulness is best

Figures in grave procession shown.

No painted things of wire and wood.

But entities of flesh and blood,

With faiths and passions like our own

And She, — that soul of grace and pride,

Gripped in the vice of circumstance,

We hear, as in a breathless trance,

Of how she loved, and erred, and died.

So strong a sister’s load to share,

To eager Love’s behest so frail,

Till all his fires could not prevail

To turn the march of cold Despair,

She learned, as broke the Enchanter’s wand.

The dull reality of things;

She beat the cage with bleeding wings,

And burst into the dread Beyond.

And what of us? unveil who can

Our own decorous English life,

The tangle and the secret strife, —

The changeless heritage of man,

The jangled chords that mar the tune,

The mad desires, the hopes that die.

The tragedies that underlie

The laughter of a London June —

God knows, — who sees us as we are,

Of contradictions all compact,

The nobler aim, the baser act.

To hug the yoke, or scale the star;

From fair to foul, from foul to fair.

Like her, we drift and wander thus;

God’s mercy keep, for her, for us,

Chance of retrieval otherwhere!

O, it’s fine to be young,

In the warmth of the Season;

All the Poets have sung”

“O, it’s fine to be young!”

When Love’s changes are rung

Upon Folly and Reason,—

O, it’s fine to be young,

In the warmth of the Season.

Who are those by the door?—

Our host and our hostess? —

Never saw them before:

Who are those by the door?

He looks such an old bore, —

She’s as white as a “ghostess”;

Who are those by the door? —

Our host!! and our hostess!!!

She’s not asked to the Ball,

O, Despair! Desolation!

And it’s marked “Very small”,

She’s not asked to the Ball:

She has rushed off to call,

But still no invitation!

She’s not asked to the Ball,

O, Despair! Desolation!