Оборотишься в ворчуна,
На каждом говоря шагу:
«О, где былые времена?»
Как заливался прежний дрозд!
Как возвышался прежний лес!
А сколь мерцало прежде звезд
На прежнем куполе небес!
Нещадна времени рука,
И душу иссушить вольна…
И стонет сердце старика:
«О, где былые времена?»
Перевод С. Александровского
James Hogg (1770–1835)
Donald MacGillavry
Donald’s gane up the hill hard and hungry
Donald comes down the hill wild and angry
Donald will clear the gouk’s nest cleverly
Here’s tae the king and Donald Macgillavry
Come like a weigh-bauk, Donald Macgillavry
Come like a weigh-bauk, Donald Macgillavry
Balance them fair, and balance them cleverly
Off wi’ the counterfeit, Donald Macgillavry
Donald’s run o’er the hill but his tether, man
As he were wud, or stang’d wi’ an ether, man
When he comes back, there’s some will look merrily
Here’s tae King James and Donald Macgillavry
Come like a weaver, Donald Macgillavry
Come like a weaver, Donald Macgillavry
Pack on your back, an elwand sae cleverly
Gie them full measure, my Donald Macgillavry
Donald has foughten wi’ reif and roguery
Donald has dinner’d wi’ banes and beggery
Better it were for Whigs and Whiggery
Meeting the devil than Donald Macgillavry
Come like a tailor, Donald Macgillavry
Come like a tailor, Donald Macgillavry
Push about, in and out, thimble them cleverly
Here’s tae King James and Donald Macgillavry
Donald’s the callan that brooks nae tangleness
Whigging, and prigging, and a’ newfangleness
They maun be gane; he winna be baukit, man
He maun hae justice, or faith he’ll tak it, man
Come like a cobler, Donald Macgillavry
Come like a cobler, Donald Macgillavry
Beat them, and bore them, and lingel them cleverly
Up wi’ King James and Donald Macgillavry
Donald was mumpit wi’ mirds and mockery
Donald was blindid wi’ blads o’ property
Arles ran high, but makings war naething, man
Lord, how Donald is flyting and fretting, man
Come like the devil, Donald Macgillavry
Come like the devil, Donald Macgillavry
Skelp them an’ scaud them that prov’d sae unbritherly
Up wi’ King James and Donald Macgillavry.
The Gipsies
Hast thou not noted on the bye-way side,
Where England’s loanings stretch unsoiled and wide,
Or by the brook that through the valley pours,
Where mimic waves play lightly through the flowers —
A noisy crew, far straggling in the glade,
Busied with trifles or in slumber laid;
Their children lolling round them on the grass,
Or pestering with their sports the patient ass?
The wrinkled grandam there you may espy,
The ripe young maiden with the glossy eye,
Men in their prime — the striplings dark and dun,
Scathed by the storms and freckled by the sun:
Oh, mark them well, when next the group you see
In vacant barn, or resting on the lea!
They are the remnant of a race of old —
Spare not the trifle for your fortune told,
For there shalt thou behold with nature blent
A tint of mind in every lineament;
A mould of soul distinct, but hard to trace,
Unknown except to Israel’s wandering race;
For thence, as sages say, their line they drew —
Oh, mark them well! the tales of old are true.
‘Tis told that once in ages long gone by,
When Christian zeal ran to extremity;
When Europe, like a flood no might could stem,
Poured forth her millions on Jerusalem;
One roaming tribe of Araby they won,
Bent on the spoil and foray just begun.
Great was their value — every path they knew,
Where sprung the fountain, where the forage grew,
And better wist than all the Christian men
How to mislead and vex the Saracen.
But when the nations by experience knew
Their folly, and from eastern realms withdrew,
The alien tribe durst not remain behind,
Empires and hordes against them were combined.
Thither they came. — But still the word of Heaven
Stedfast remains to ancient Abram given:
“Wild shall they be ’mid nations from their birth,
