И мой перстень, — ведьма рекла.

Она воскресила плоть мёртвых рук,

И кольцо потянула слегка,

Но мертвой хваткой, сжав пальцы вдруг,

Её схватила рука.

Ведьма клялась, что не слала гроз,

И заклятья читала вспять:

Но мертвец был глух, и не слушал всерьёз,

А рука продолжала держать.

И смертным хладом пополз прилив,

Когда подошёл его срок;

Он колени обнял, нетороплив,

И на талию ведьмы лёг.

С новобрачными вновь, среди пенистых грив,

Корабль поплыл по волне,

И ведьма увидела их сквозь прилив,

Что с губами встал наравне.

О, сердце мертвых и руки мертвых —

Ваши объятья крепки!

И любовь — скорлупка, но летит голубка

Всем ястребам вопреки.

Перевод Антона Железного

Henrietta Anne Huxley (1825–1914)

An Agnostic Hymn

Oh! not the unreasoning God for me,

Foreseeing, knowing all

That in the wondrous world he made

His creatures should befall.

Created them with keen desire,

Then called fulfilment sin,

And drove them forth with flaming fire,

Their toil-earned bread to win.

And then repenting of his deed,

A man God did create,

Who by his death upon the cross

That sin should expiate.

The God whom man eats in the bread,

Whose blood he drinks in wine,

Such pagan faith be far from me —

I own a more divine.

I see in every tree that grows,

In seed that all contains,

In every wind, and cloud that flows

In fertilising rains,

In every stone whose atoms whirl,

Yet seems so coldly still,

Or in the wood with living sap,

Thy unresistless will.

In sands that at a vibrant sound

Of music straightway leap,

And range themselves in beauteous forms

From out the inert heap,

In far off stars, in blazing suns

That never, never rest,

What tho’ I cannot understand,

My God is manifest.

No knowledge mine that when I die

I e’er shall live again,

I am thy creature, and content

With what thou dost ordain.

To thee I blow, I lift my soul,

I, thy all-teeming clod,

Seen Spirit — yet invisible —

The Great, the Unknown God!

Browning’s Funeral

This day within the Abbey, where of old

Our kings are sepulchred, a king of song,

Browning, among his peers is laid to rest,

Borne to the tomb by loving hearts, and stoled

In shining raiment that his genius wove.

No lingering illness his, with swift surprise

Death flashed the Light Eternal in his eyes

And blinded Life. In this way he was blest.

Perhaps in some far star he now has met

His rose of love, his ne’er forgotten wife,

In life past death the passion of his life,

And they again as once in spirit blent

Look thro’ the veil this day and hear the fret

Of many feet, the swelling music spent

On mourning listeners. With voices low,

Chanting their hymn, the boys sing as they go,

“He giveth his Belovèd sleep”. What tho’

The perishable forms these two once wore

In different lands lie sundered by the sea;

Their spirits smile at this our fond regret:

“What matters anything since we have met”,

They radiant sing. Together! oh, what more

Can love, long parted, from the Eternal crave?

And if there be no meeting past the grave,

If all is darkness, silence, yet ’tis rest.

Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep,

For God still giveth his belovèd sleep,

And if an endless sleep he wills, — so best.

Генриэтта Энн Хаксли (1825–1914)

Агностический гимн

О нет, не для меня тот Бог,

Что знает наперёд

Про тех, кого он породил,

Какой удел их ждёт.

Он создал их, но счёл за грех