Woodstock

Such was old Chaucer. Such the placid mien

Of him who first with harmony informed

The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt

For many a cheerful day. These ancient walls

Have often heard him while his legends blithe

He sang of love or knighthood, or the wiles

Of homely life, through each estate and age,

The fashions and the follies of the world

With cunning hand portraying. Though perchance

From Blenheim’s towers, O stranger! thou art come

Glowing with Churchill’s trophies, yet in vain

Dost thou applaud them if thy breast be cold

To him, this other hero, who in times

Dark and untaught, began with charming verse

To tame the rudeness of his native land.

Марк Эйкенсайд (1721–1770)

Надпись к статуе Чосера в Вудстоке

Таков был ветхий Чосер и таков

Спокойный лик того, кто благозвучье

Придал наречью пращуров. Он здесь

Жил много дней счастливых. Эти стены

Старинные его внимали сказу

О рыцарстве, любви, очарованьи

Домашней жизни, о сословьях разных,

Причудах и обыкновеньях света,

Написанных находчивым пером.

Прохожий! От Бленгейма[43] ты пришел,

Быть может, славу Черчилля смотрел,

Но ею зря ты восторгался, если

Тобою позабыт другой герой,

Что в варварский, полуученый век

Стихами дикость Англии смирял.

Перевод А. Серебренникова

Christopher Smart (1722–1771)

A Song to David

I.

O THOU, that sit’st upon a throne,

With harp of high majestic tone,

To praise the King of kings;

And voice of heav’n-ascending swell,

Which, while its deeper notes excell,

Clear, as a clarion, rings:

II.

To bless each valley, grove and coast,

And charm the cherubs to the post

Of gratitude in throngs;

To keep the days on Zion’s mount,

And send the year to his account,

With dances and with songs:

III.

O Servant of God’s holiest charge,

The minister of praise at large,

Which thou may’st now receive;

From thy blest mansion hail and hear,

From topmost eminence appear

To this the wreath I weave.

IV.

Great, valiant, pious, good, and clean,

Sublime, contemplative, serene,

Strong, constant, pleasant, wise!

Bright effluence of exceeding grace;

Best man! — the swiftness and the race,

The peril, and the prize!

V.

Great-from the lustre of his crown,

From Samuel’s horn and God’s renown,

Which is the people’s voice;

For all the host, from rear to van,

Applauded and embrac’d the man —

The man of God’s own choice.

VI.

Valiant-the word and up he rose —

The fight-he triumph’d o’er the foes,

Whom God’s just laws abhor;

And arm’d in gallant faith he took

Against the boaster, from the brook,

The weapons of the war.

VII.

Pious-magnificent and grand;

’Twas he the famous temple plan’d:

(The seraph in his soul)

Foremost to give his Lord his dues,

Foremost to bless the welcome news,

And foremost to condole.

VIII.

Good-from Jehudah’s genuine vein,

From God’s best nature good in grain,

His aspect and his heart;

To pity, to forgive, to save,

Witness En-gedi’s conscious cave,

And Shimei’s blunted dart.

IX.

Clean-if perpetual prayer be pure,

And love, which could itself innure

To fasting and to fear —

Clean in his gestures, hands, and feet,

To smite the lyre, the dance compleat,

To play the sword and spear.

X.

Sublime-invention ever young,

Of vast conception, tow’ring tongue,

To God th’eternal theme;

Notes from yon exaltations caught,

Unrival’d royalty of thought,

O’er meaner strains supreme.

XI.

Contemplative-on God to fix

His musings, and above the six

The sabbath-day he blest;

’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest prun’d,

And heavenly melancholy tun’d,

To bless and bear the rest.

XII.

Serene-to sow the seeds of peace,

Rememb’ring, when he watch’d the fleece,

How sweetly Kidron purl’d —

To further knowledge, silence vice,

And plant perpetual paradise

When God had calm’d the world.

XIII.

Strong-in the Lord, who could defy

Satan, and all his powers that lie

In sempiternal night;

And hell, and horror, and despair

Were as the lion and the bear

To his undaunted might.

XIV.

Constant-in love to God THE TRUTH,

Age, manhood, infancy, and youth —

To Jonathan his friend

Constant, beyond the verge of death;

And Ziba, and Mephibosheth,

His endless fame attend.

XV.

Pleasant-and various as the year;

Man, soul, and angel, without peer,

Priest, champion, sage and boy;

In armour, or in ephod clad,

His pomp, his piety was glad;

Majestic was his joy.

XVI.

Wise-in recovery from his fall,

Whence rose his eminence o’er all,

Of all the most revil’d;

The light of Israel in his ways,

Wise are his precepts, prayer and praise,

And counsel to his child.

XVII.

His muse, bright angel of his verse,

Gives balm