Вы, гордые грезы! надежды на власть!
Все, все миновало.
Надежды на власть! - Да! я помню: об том
(Мне память былое приводит)
Мечтал я когда-то во сне молодом...
Но пусть их проходят!
И гордые грезы? - Теперь мне - что в них!
Пусть яд их был мною усвоен,
Но пусть он палит ныне темя других.
Мой дух! будь спокоен.
Счастливейший день! - счастливейший час!
Что сердце усталое знало,
Вы, гордые взгляды! вы, взгляды на власть!
Все, все миновало.
Но если бы снова и взяли вы верх,
Но с бредом мученья былого,
Вас, миги надежд, я отверг бы, отверг,
Чтоб не мучиться снова!
Летите вы с пеньем, но гибель и страх
Змеится, как отблеск, по перьям,
И каплет с них яд, сожигающий в прах
Того, кто вас принял с доверьем.
(1924)
Перевод В. Брюсова
6. THE LAKE - TO
In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody
Then - ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define
Nor Love - although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.
(1827-1845)
6. ОЗЕРО
К ***
Меня, на утре жизни, влек
В просторном мире уголок,
Что я любил, любил до дна!
Была прекрасна тишина
Угрюмых вод и черных скал,
Что бор торжественный обстал.
Когда же Ночь, царица снов,
На все бросала свой покров
И ветр таинственный в тени
Роптал мелодию: усни!
Я пробуждался вдруг мечтой
Для ужаса страны пустой.
Но этот ужас не был страх,
Был трепетный восторг в мечтах:
Не выразить его полней
За пышный блеск Голконды всей,
За дар Любви - хотя б твоей!
Но Смерть скрывалась там, в волнах
Тлетворных, был в них саркофаг
Для всех, кто стал искать бы там
Покоя одиноким снам,
Кто скорбной грезой - мрачный край
Преобразил бы в светлый рай.
(1924)
Перевод В. Брюсова
7. SONNET - TO SCIENCE
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
(1829-1843)
7. СОНЕТ К НАУКЕ
Наука! ты - дитя Седых Времен!
Меняя все вниманьем глаз прозрачных,
Зачем тревожишь ты поэта сон,
О коршун! крылья чьи - взмах истин мрачных!
Тебя любить? и мудрой счесть тебя?
Зачем же ты мертвишь его усилья,
Когда, алмазы неба возлюбя,
Он мчится ввысь, раскинув смело крылья!
Дианы коней кто остановил?
Кто из леса изгнал Гамадриаду,
Услав искать приюта меж светил?
Кто выхватил из лона вод Наяду?
Из веток Эльфа? Кто бред летних грез,
Меж тамарисов, от меня унес?
(1924)
Перевод В. Брюсова
8. AL AARAAF
PART I
O! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours
Yet all the beauty - all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers
Adorn yon world afar, afar
The wandering star.
'Twas a sweet time for Nesace - for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns - a temporary rest
An oasis in desert of the blest.
Away - away - 'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin'd eminence
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour'd one of God
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre - leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.
Now happiest, loveliest in you lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth,
(Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)
She look'd into Infinity - and knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled
Fit emblems of the model of her world
Seen but in beauty - not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro' the light
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal'd air in color bound.
All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers: of lilies such as rear'd the head
On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of - deep pride
Of her who lov'd a mortal - and so died.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd
All other loveliness: its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond - and on a sunny flower
So like its own above that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie:
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger - grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair:
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run:
And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:
And Valisnerian lotus thither flown
From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:
And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!
Isola d'oro! - Fior di Levante!
And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
With Indian Cupid down the holy river
Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven:
"Spirit! that tlwellest where,
In the deep sky,
The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie!
Beyond the line of blue
The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar
Of the barrier overgone
By the comets who were cast
From their pride, and from their throne
To be drudges till the last
To be carriers of fire
(The red fire of their heart)
With speed that may not tire
And with pain that shall not part
Who livest - _that_ we know
In Eternity - we feel
But the shadow of whose brow
What spirit shall reveal?
Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known
Have dream'd for thy Infinity
A model of their own
Thy will is done. Oh, God!
The star hath ridden high
Thro' many a tempest, but she rode
Beneath thy burning eye;
And here, in thought, to thee
In thought that can alone
Ascend thy empire and so be
A partner of thy throne
By winged Fantasy,
My embassy is given,
Till secrecy shall knowledge be
In the environs of Heaven."
She ceas'd - and buried then her burning cheek
Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek
A shelter from the fervour of His eye;
For the stars trembled at the Deity.
She stirr'd not - breath'd not - for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air!
A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."
