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