Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

Mortality, behold and fear!

What a change of flesh is here!

Think how many royal bones

Sleep within this heap of stones:

Here they lie had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands:

Where from pulpits seal’d with dust

They preach, “In greatness is no trust”.

Here’s an acre sown indeed

With the richest, royall’st seed

That the earth did e’er suck in

Since the first man died for sin:

Here the bones of birth have cried —

“Though gods they were, as men they died”.

Here are sands, ignoble things,

Dropt from the ruin’d sides of kings;

Here’s a world of pomp and state,

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

Like to the falling of a star,

Or as the flights of eagles are,

Or like the fresh spring’s gaudy hue,

Or silver drops of morning dew,

Or like a wind that chafes the flood,

Or bubbles which on water stood, —

Even such is man, whose borrowed light

Is straight called in, and paid to-night.

The wind blows out, the bubble dies,

The spring entombed in autumn lies,

The dew dries up, the star is shot,

The flight is past, — and man forgot!

Flattering Hope, away and leave me,

She’ll not come, thou dost deceive me;

Hark the cock crows, th’ envious light

Chides away the silent night;

Yet she comes not, oh! how I tire

Betwixt cold fear and hot desire.

Here alone enforced to tarry

While the tedious minutes marry,

And get hours, those days and years,

Which I count with sighs and fears

Yet she comes not, oh! how I tire

Betwixt cold fear and hot desire.

Restless thoughts a while remove

Unto the bosom of my love,

Let her languish in my pain,

Fear and hope, and fear again;

Then let her tell me, in love’s fire,

What torment’s like unto desire?

Endless wishing, tedious longing,

Hopes and fears together thronging;

Rich in dreams, yet poor in waking,

Let her be in such a taking:

Then let her tell me in love’s fire,

What torment’s like unto desire?

Come then, Love, prevent day’s eyeing,

My desire would fain be dying:

Smother me with breathless kisses,

Let me dream no more of blisses;

But tell me, which is in Love’s fire

Best, to enjoy, or to desire?