Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Green gardens in Laventie!

⁠Soldiers only know the street

Where the mud is churned and splashed about

⁠By battle-wending feet;

And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of grass,⁠

⁠Look for it when you pass.

Beyond the Church whose pitted spire

⁠Seems balanced on a strand

Of swaying stone and tottering brick

⁠Two roofless ruins stand,

And here behind the wreckage where the back-wall should have been⁠

⁠We found a garden green.

The grass was never trodden on,

⁠The little path of gravel

Was overgrown with celandine,

⁠No other folk did travel

Along its weedy surface, but the nimble-footed mouse⁠

⁠Running from house to house.

So all among the vivid blades

⁠Of soft and tender grass

We lay, nor heard the limber wheels

⁠That pass and ever pass,

In noisy continuity, until their stony rattle⁠

⁠Seems in itself a battle.

At length we rose up from our ease

⁠Of tranquil happy mind,

And searched the garden’s little length

⁠A fresh pleasaunce to find;

And there, some yellow daffodils and jasmine hanging high⁠

⁠Did rest the tired eye.

The fairest and most fragrant

⁠Of the many sweets we found,

Was a little bush of Daphne flower

⁠Upon a grassy mound,

And so thick were the blossoms set, and so divine the scent,⁠

⁠That we were well content.

Hungry for Spring I bent my head,

⁠The perfume fanned my face,

And all my soul was dancing

⁠In that lovely little place,

Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns⁠

⁠Away. upon the Downs.

I saw green banks of daffodil,

⁠Slim poplars in the breeze,

Great tan-brown hares in gusty March

⁠A-courting on the leas;

And meadows with their glittering streams, and silver scurrying dace,⁠

⁠Home — what a perfect place!

I too remember distant golden days

When even my soul was young; I see the sand

Whirl in a blinding pillar towards the band

Of orange sky-line ’neath a turquoise blaze—

(Some burnt-out sky spread o’er a glistening land)

— And slim brown jargoning men in blue and gold,

I know it all so well, I understand

The ecstasy of worship ages-old.

Hear the first truth: The great far-seeing soul

⁠Is ever in the humblest husk; I see

How each succeeding section takes its toll

⁠In fading cycles of old memory.

And each new life the next life shall control

⁠Until perfection reach Eternity.

Once more the Night, like some great dark drop-scene

Eclipsing horrors for a brief entr’acte,

Descends, lead-weighty. Now the space between,

Fringed with the eager eyes of men, is racked

By spark-tailed lights, curvetting far and high,

Swift smoke-flecked coursers, raking the black sky.

And as each sinks in ashes grey, one more

Rises to fall, and so through all the hours

They strive like petty empires by the score,

Each confident of its success and powers,

And, hovering at its zenith, each will show

Pale, rigid faces, lying dead, below.

There shall they lie, tainting the innocent air,

Until the dawn, deep veiled in mournful grey,

Sadly and quietly shall lay them bare,

The broken heralds of a doleful day.