было кладбище, —

Пятьдесят наросло свежих бурых холмов.

Пуста колыбель и постель не измята:

Младенец у груди родимой потух;

Ребенок, играя, пал на руки брата,

И лежит на лугу старый мертвый пастух.

О, страшно весенней желанной порою

Поджидать щебетанья в лесах и лугах, —

А дрозд с коноплянкой под мертвой листвою,

Ни песни, ни звука в зеленых ветвях.

Страшней, как земля благодарно готова

Смеяться за то, что ей небом дано —

И слушать; ни слова людского, родного…

И светлой порою на сердце темно.

Перевод Ю. Верховского

Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall) (1787–1874)

Song

Here’s a health to thee, Jessy

Burns

Here’s a health to thee, Mary,

Here’s a health to thee;

The drinkers are gone,

And I am alone,

To think of home and thee, Mary.

There are some who may shine o’er thee, Mary,

And many as frank and free,

And a few as fair,

But the summer air

Is not more sweet to me, Mary.

I have thought of thy last low sigh, Mary,

And thy dimm’d and gentle eye;

And I’ve called on thy name

When the night winds came,

And heard my heart reply, Mary.

Be thou but true to me, Mary,

And I’ll be true to thee;

And at set of sun,

When my task is done,

Вe sure that I’m ever with thee, Mary.

Serenade

Inesilla! I am here

Thy own cavalier

Is now beneath thy lattice playing:

Why art thou delaying?

He hath riden many a mile

But to see thy smile:

The young light on the flowers is shining,

Yet he is repining.

What to him is a summer star,

If his love’s afar?

What to him the flowers perfuming,

When his heart’s consuming?

Sweetest girl! I why dost thou hide?

Beauty may abide

Even before the eye of morning,

And want no adorning.

Now, upon their paths of lights,

Starry spirits bright

To catch thy brighter glance are staying:

Why art thou delaying?

An Invocation

If, at this dim and silent hour,

Spirits have a power

To wander from their homes of light,

And on the winds of night

To come, and to a human eye

Stand visible, like mortality —

Come thou, the lost Marcelia, thou —

And on thy sunny brow

Bear all thy beauty as of old,

For I dare behold

Whatever sights sublime there be,

So I may once more look on thee.

Or be thou like a daemon thing,

Or shadow hovering,

Or like the bloody shapes that come

With torch and sound of drum,

Scaring the warrior’s slumbers, I

Will welcome thee, and wish thee nigh.

And I would talk of the famous brave,

Of the dead, and their house the grave,

And feel its wondrous silentness,

And pity those whom none may bless,

And see how far the gaping tomb

Stretches its spectral arms — and hear my doom.

And I would know how long they lie

On their dark beds who die,

And if they feel, or joy, or weep,

Or ever dare to sleep

In that strange land of shadows. Thou

Whom I do call, come hither — now.

But there thou art, a radiant spirit,

And dost inherit

Earlier than others thy blue home,

And art free to roam

Like a visiting beam, from star to star,

And shed thy smiles from skies afar.

Then, soft and gentle beauty, be

Still like a star to me;

And I will ever turn at night

Unto thy soothing light,

And fancy, while before thine eyes,

I am full in the smile of Paradise.

Il Penseroso and L’ Allegro

(Night.)

Old Thames! thy merry waters run

Gloomily now, without star or sun!

The wind blows o’er thee, wild and loud,

And heaven is in its death-black shroud;

And the rain comes down with all its might,

Darkening the face of the sullen Night.

Midnight dies! There booms a sound,

From all the church-towers thundering round;

Their echoes into each other run,

And sing out the grand night’s awful “One!”

Saint Bride, Saint Sepulchre, great Saint Paul,

Unto each other, in chorus, call!

Who speaks? ’T was nothing: the patrol grim

Moves stealthily o’er the pavement dim;

The debtor dreams of the gripe of law;

The harlot goes staggering to her straw;

And the drunken robber, and beggar bold

Laugh loud, as they limp by the Bailey Old.

Hark, — I hear the blood in a felon’s heart!

I see him shiver — and heave — and start

(Does he cry?) from his last short bitter slumber,

To find that his days have reached their number, —

To feel that there comes, with the morning text,

Blind death, and the scaffold, and then — what next?