Унылые чертоги! Я едва ли

Стерпеть бы смог молчанье вашей тьмы —

Здесь словно бы невинных убивали,

Здесь гибли благородные умы

В пустых надеждах, в суетном дерзаньи,

Испепелившись в собственном сияньи!

Мне кажется, могила мнится им

Гораздо холодней, чем мертвецам простым.

Перевод А. Серебренникова

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

Shakespeare

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still,

Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,

Spares but the cloudy border of his base

To the foil’d searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,

Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,

Didst tread on earth unguess’d at. — Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

Youth’s Agitations

When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence,

From this poor present self which I am now;

When youth has done its tedious vain expense

Of passions that for ever ebb and flow;

Shall I not joy youth’s heats are left behind,

And breathe more happy in an even clime? —

Ah no, for then I shall begin to find

A thousand virtues in this hated time!

Then I shall wish its agitations back,

And all its thwarting currents of desire;

Then I shall praise the heat which then I lack,

And call this hurrying fever, generous fire;

And sigh that one thing only has been lent

To youth and age in common — discontent.

The Forsaken Merman

Come, dear children, let us away;

Down and away below!

Now my brothers call from the bay,

Now the great winds shoreward blow,

Now the salt tides seaward flow;

Now the wild white horses play,

Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.

Children dear, let us away!

This way, this way!

Call her once before you go —

Call once yet!

In a voice that she will know:

“Margaret! Margaret!”

Children’s voices should be dear

(Call once more) to a mother’s ear;

Children’s voices, wild with pain —

Surely she will come again!

Call her once and come away;

This way, this way!

“Mother dear, we cannot stay!

The wild white horses foam and fret”.

Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;

Call no more!

One last look at the white-walled town,

And the little grey church on the windy shore;

Then come down!

She will not come though you call all day;

Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday

We heard the sweet bells over the bay?

In the caverns where we lay,

Through the surf and through the swell,

The far-off sound of a silver bell?

Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,

Where the winds are all asleep;

Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,

Where the salt weed sways in the stream,

Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,

Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;

Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,

Dry their mail and bask in the brine;

Where great whales come sailing by,

Sail and sail, with unshut eye,

Round the world for ever and aye?

When did music come this way?

Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday

(Call yet once) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me,

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,

And the youngest sate on her knee.

She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well,

When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.

She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea;

She said: “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little grey church on the shore today.

’T will be Easter-time in the world — ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee”.