Готовится ко сну.
Ну что ж, немного погодя
Я тоже отдохну.
Найду свободу и покой
И сном забудусь я…
Блестит дорога под луной.
Прости, любовь моя.
– XXXVII-
As through the wild green hills of Wyre
The train ran, changing sky and shire,
And far behind, a fading crest,
Low in the forsaken west
Sank the high-reared head of Clee,
My hand lay empty on my knee.
Aching on my knee it lay:
That morning half a shire away
So many an honest fellow's fist
Had well nigh wrung it from the wrist.
Hand, said I, since now we part
From fields and men we know by heart,
For strangers' faces, strangers' lands, —
Hand, you have held true fellows' hands.
Be clean then; rot before you do
A thing they'd not believe of you.
You and I must keep from shame
In London streets the Shropshire name;
On banks of Thames they must not say
Severn breeds worse men than they;
And friends abroad must bear in mind
Friends at home they leave behind.
Oh, I shall be stiff and cold
When I forget you, hearts of gold;
The land where I shall mind you not
Is the land where all's forgot.
And if my foot returns no more
To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore,
Luck, my lads, be with you still
By falling stream and standing hill,
By chiming tower and whispering tree,
Men that made a man of me.
About your work in town and farm
Still you'll keep my head from harm,
Still you'll help me, hands that gave
A grasp to friend me to the grave.
– 37-НА МОТИВ «ПРОЩАНИЯ СЛАВЯНКИ»
Наступает минута прощания.
Покидая отеческий край,
Весь в слезах я шепчу: «До свидания!»,
Про себя повторяя: «Прощай!»
На чужбину меня провожая,
Провожая меня в целый мир,
Собралася толпа небольшая
Тех, кого я тогда зафрендил.
Элизиум, прощай,
Меня не забывай,
Прощай, АСП!
Прости-прощай! Прости-прощай!
Летят-летят года,
Но песня со мною всегда!
И так прекрасно
В лазури ясной
Горит-горит одна звезда!
В лазури ясной,
Многотиражной
Горит-горит одна звезда!
Отечество, прощай,
Меня воспоминай,
Прощай, ГРД!
Прости-прощай! Прости-прощай!
Никогда не предам я злословию,
Никогда, ни за что не предам,
Присягнувши такому сословию,
Присягнувши таким вот френдам!
И —
Рам-пам-пам-пам,
Рам-па-па-ру-рам!
– XXXVIII-
The winds out of the west land blow,
My friends have breathed them there;
Warm with the blood of lads I know
Comes east the sighing air.
It fanned their temples, filled their lungs,
Scattered their forelocks free;
My friends made words of it with tongues
That talk no more to me.
Their voices, dying as they fly,
Thick on the wind are sown;
The names of men blow soundless by,
My fellows' and my own.
Oh lads, at home I heard you plain,
But here your speech is still,
And down the sighing wind in vain
You hollo from the hill.
The wind and I, we both were there,
But neither long abode;
Now through the friendless world we fare
And sigh upon the road.
– 38-ГЕТЕРОСЕКСУАЛЬНАЯ АПРОПРИАЦИЯ
The winds out of the west land blow,
My girl has breathed them there;
Warm with the blood of girl I know,
Comes east the sighing air.
It fanned her temples, filled her lungs,
Scattered her forelock free;
My girl made words of it with tongue
That talks no more to me.
Her sweet voice, dying as it flies,
Thick on the wind is sown;
The name of man blows soundless by,
My rival's, not my own.
Oh yesterday I heard you plain,
But now your speech is still,
And down the sighing wind in vain
I hollo from the hill.
The wind and I, we both were there,
But neither long abode;
Now through the friendless world we fare
And sigh upon the road.
– XXXIX-
'Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town
The golden broom should blow;
The hawthorn sprinkled up and down
Should charge the land with snow.
Spring will not wait the loiterer's time
Who keeps so long away;
So others wear the broom and climb
The hedgerows heaped with may.
Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,
Gold that I never see;
Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge
That will not shower on me.
– 39-
… Осенней улицей пройдя,
Свернем в осенний лес.
Как странно столько лет спустя
Мне оказаться здесь.
Вот тут она шепнула: «Да!»,
Вон там сказала: «Нет!»,
А здесь вот я стоял тогда
И нес блаженный бред…
Так я пройду тропинкой сей
Когда-нибудь потом,
Без элегических затей,
Конкретным старичком.
– XL-
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
– 40-
Издалека пахнуло тем,
Что гибелью грозит:
Где ж эти вешние холмы,
Где ж та листва шумит?
Ах, это край, где вечно май,
Где вечно мы, дружок,
Сидим на склоне, расстелив
В длину мой пиджачок.
– XLI-
In my own shire, if I was sad,
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,
Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:
Whether in the woodland brown
I heard the beechnut rustle down,
And saw the purple crocus pale
Flower about the autumn dale;
Or littering far the fields of May
Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,
And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.
Yonder, lightening other loads,
The seasons range the country roads,
But here in London streets I ken
No such helpmates, only men;
And these are not in plight to bear,
If they would, another's care.
They have enough as 'tis: I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;
And till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill.
– 41-ОЗЕРО СЕНЕЖ
Будет нынешней зимой
Тридцать с гаком – Бог ты мой! —
С той поры и с той зимы,
С той алмазной звездной тьмы.
Только папа засыпал,
Я тихонечко вставал,
Надевал полупальто,
Ну а шапку – ни за что!
И с балкона на балкон
Я спускался, вдохновлен
то ли Блоком, то ли той
Новогодней красотой.
Ночь блистала, снег сиял,
Я сонеты сочинял.
Лежа на озерных льдах,
Я взирал на звездный прах!
Чуть мне душу не исторг
Этот блоковский восторг,
Ибо под терцетов гул
Я однажды там заснул.
Но чрез три десятка лет
Вспомнил я тот звездный бред,
Будучи опять влюблен,
Вспомнил тот опасный сон.
Чхартишвили прочитав,
Я сказал: «А вдруг он прав?
И поэту надлежит
Непременный суицид?
Как там шведка у него
Шла к могиле снеговой?
Так и я. Но я сперва
Выпью литр. А лучше два!»
Даме сердца я в сердцах
Рассказал про этот страх.
Но тогдашняя беда
Мне в ответ сказала: «М-да!».
Но всегдашняя тоска
Усмехнулася: «Ага!
Спьяну можешь выжить там,
Отморозив все к чертям!»
Верно, девочка моя,
Поживу покамест я.
– XLII-THE MERRY GUIDE
Once in the wind of morning
I ranged the thymy wold;
The world-wide air was azure
And all the brooks ran gold.
There through the dews beside me
Behold a youth that trod,
With feathered cap on forehead,
And poised a golden rod.
With mien to match the morning
And gay delightful guise
And friendly brows and laughter
He looked me in the eyes.