Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

The world’s a bubble; and the life of man

Less than a span.

In his conception wretched; from the womb

So to the tomb:

Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years,

With cares and fears.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust,

But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

Yet, since with sorrow here we live oppress’d,

What life is best?

Courts are but only superficial schools

To dandle fools:

The rural parts are turn’d into a den

Of savage men:

And where’s a city from all vice so free,

But may be term’d the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband’s bed,

Or pains his head:

Those that live single, take it for a curse,

Or do things worse:

Some would have children; those that have them none;

Or wish them gone.

What is it then to have no wife,

But single thralldom or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please,

Is a disease:

To cross the sea to any foreign soil,

Perils and toil:

Wars with their noise affright us: when they cease,

W’ are worse in peace:

What then remains, but that we still should cry,

Not to be born, or being born, to die.

Help, Lord, for godly men have took their flight,

And left the earth to be the wicked’s den:

Not one that standeth fast to truth and right,

But fears, or seeks to please, the eyes of men.

When one with other falls in talk apart,

Their meaning go’th not with their words, in proof,

But fair they flatter, with a cloven heart,

By pleasing words, to work their own behoof.

But God cut off the lips, that are all set

To trap the harmless soul, that peace hath vow’d;

And pierce the tongues, that seek to counterfeit

The confidence of truth, by lying loud:

Yet so they think to reign, and work their will

By subtile speech, which enters everywhere;

And say: Our tongues are ours, to help us still;

What need we any higher pow’r to fear?

Now for the bitter sighing of the poor,

The Lord hath said, I will no more forbear

The wicked’s kingdom to invade and scour,

And set at large the men restrain’d in fear.

And sure the word of God is pure and fine,

And in the trial never loseth weight;

Like noble gold, which, since it left the mine,

Hath seven times pass’d through the fiery strait.

And now thou wilt not first thy word forsake,

Nor yet the righteous man that leans thereto;

But wilt his safe protection undertake,

In spite of all their force and wiles can do.

And time it is, O Lord, thou didst draw nigh;

The wicked daily do enlarge their bands;

And that which makes them follow ill a vie,

Rule is betaken to unworthy hands.

O Lord, thou art our home, to whom we fly,

And so hast always been from age to age;

Before the hills did intercept the eye,

Or that the frame was up of earthly stage.

One God thou wert, and art, and still shalt be;

The line of time, it doth not measure thee.

Both death and life obey thy holy lore,

And visit in their turns, as they are sent;

A thousand years with thee they are no more

Than yesterday, which, ere it is, is spent:

Or as a watch by night, that course doth keep,

And goes, and comes, unwares to them that sleep.

Thou carryest man away as with a tide:

Then down swim all his thoughts that mounted high;

Much like a mocking dream, that will not bide,

But flies before the sight of waking eye;

Or as the grass, that cannot term obtain!

To see the summer come about again.

At morning, fair it musters on the ground;

At even it is cut down, and laid along:

And though it spared were, and favour found,

The weather would perform the mower’s wrong:

Thus hast thou hang’d our life on brittle pins,

To let us know it will not bear our sins.

Thou buryest not within oblivion’s tomb

Our trespasses, but enterest them aright;

Ev’n those that are conceived in darkness’ womb,

To thee appear as done at broad day-light.

As a tale told, which sometimes men attend,

And sometimes not, our life steals to an end.

The life of man is threescore years and ten,

Or, if that he be strong, perhaps fourscore;

Yet all things are but labour to him then,

New sorrows still come on, pleasures no more.

Why should there be such turmoil and such strife.

To spin in length this feeble line of life?

But who considers duly of thine ire?

Or doth the thoughts thereof wisely embrace?

For thou, O God, art a consuming fire:

Frail man, how can he stand before thy face?

If thy displeasure thou dost not refrain,

A moment brings all back to dust again.

Teach us, O Lord, to number well our days,

Thereby our hearts to wisdom to apply;

For that which guides man best in all his ways,

Is meditation of mortality.

This bubble light, this vapour of our breath,

Teach us to consecrate to hour of death.

Return unto us, Lord, and balance now,

With days of joy, our days of misery;

Help us right soon, our knees to thee we bow,

Depending wholly on thy clemency;

Then shall thy servants both with heart and voice,

All the days of their life in thee rejoice.

Begin thy work, O Lord, in this our age,

Shew it unto thy servants that now live;

But to our children raise it many a stage,

That all the world to thee may glory give.

Our handy-work likewise, as fruitful tree

Let it, O Lord, blessed, not blasted be.