[Lika_k]

Иван Жданов
Душа проснется, и тогда
заплачет полая вода:
найдет сестрица братца,
а нам пора прощаться.

И вздрогнет на воде кольцо,
с козлиным профилем лицо
мелькнет и улыбнется.
Сестрица отзовется.

Вот в шепот сыплется листва,
она мертва, она права.
Что ей теперь приснится?
И нет нигде копытца.

Один стакан, и тот разбит,
со дна Аленушка глядит,
и ветер шепот шевелит.
Мы молча в шепот сходим
и там себя находим.

Здесь нас поддерживает свет,
и на двоих разлуки нет.
Найдет сестрица братца,
а нам пора прощаться.

@темы: 20, ж, russian

---

[Lika_k]

William Carlos Williams
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

@темы: 20, w, english-american

---

[Lika_k]

Иван Бунин
Ночная прогулка
Смотрит луна на поляны лесные
И на руины собора сквозные.
В мертвом аббатстве два желтых скелета
Бродят в недвижности лунного света:
Дама и рыцарь, склонившийся к даме
(Череп безносый и череп безглазый):
"Это сближает нас - то, что мы с вами
Оба скончались от Черной Заразы.
Я из десятого века, - решаюсь
Полюбопытствовать: вы из какого?"
И отвечает она, оскаляясь:
"Ах, как вы молоды! Я из шестого".

1947

@темы: б, 20, russian

---

[Lika_k]

Robert Louis Stevenson
To the Hesitating Purchaser
Dedication to Treasure Island
If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands, and maroons,
And buccaneers, and buried gold,

And all the old romance, retold
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of today:

- So be it, and fall on! If not,
If studious youth no longer crave,
His ancient appetites forgot,
Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,

Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
So be it, also! And may I
And all my pirates share the grave
Where these and their creations lie!

@темы: s, victorian, 19, english-british

---

[Lika_k]

Чеслав Милош
Родословная
Яну Лебенштейну
Наверно, много общего у нас,
У нас, которые росли в городах Барокко,
Не спрашивая, какой король воздвигал костел,
Мимо которого ходим, кто жил во дворце,
Как звались архитекторы, скульпторы,
Откуда, когда они прибыли, чем знамениты.
Мы просто играли в футбол под аркадами портиков,
Бегали мимо эркеров и мраморных лестниц.
Позже нам были милее скамейки в тенистых парках,
Чем изобилие гипсовых ангелов над головами.
Но что-то осталось в нас: предрасположенье к извивам,
Высокие спирали противоположностей, пламеподобные,
Наряжание женщин в пышно драпированные платья,
Дабы придать блеска танцу скелетов.

Пер. В.Британишский

@темы: polish, м, 20, milosz, czeslaw

---

[Lika_k]

D. H. Lawrence
Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)
Purple Anemones
Who gave us flowers?
Heaven? The white God?

Nonsense!
Up out of hell,
From Hades;
Infernal Dis!

Jesus the god of flowers------?
Not he.
Or sun-bright Apollo, him so musical?
Him neither.

Who then?
Say who.
Say it--and it is Pluto,
Dis,
The dark one,
Proserpine's master.

Who contradicts------?

When she broke forth from below,
Flowers came, hell-hounds on her heels.
Dis, the dark, the jealous god, the husband,
Flower-sumptuous-blooded.

Go then, he said.
And in Sicily, on the meadows of Enna,
She thought she had left him;
Hut opened around her purple anemones,
Caverns,
Little hells of colour, caves of darkness,
Hell, risen in pursuit of her; royal, sumptuous
Pit-falls.

All at her feet
Hell opening;
At her white ankles
Hell rearing its husband-splendid, serpent heads,
Hell-purple, to get at her--
Why did he let her go?
So he could track her down again, white victim.

Ah mastery!
Hell's husband-blossoms
Out on earth again.

Look out, Persephone!
You, Madame Ceres, mind yourself, the enemy is upon you.
About your feet spontaneous aconite,
Hell-glamorous, and purple husband-tyranny
Enveloping your late-enfranchised plains.

You thought your daughter had escaped?
No more stockings to darn for the flower-roots, down in
hell?
But ah my dear!

Aha, the stripe-cheeked whelps, whippet-slim crocuses,
At 'em, boys, at 'em!
Ho golden-spaniel, sweet alert narcissus,
Smell 'em, smell 'em out!

Those two enfranchised women.

Somebody is coming!
Oho there!

Dark blue anemones!
Hell is up!
Hell on earth, and Dis within the depths!

Run, Persephone, he is after you already.

Why did he let her go?
To track her down;
All the sport of summer and spring, and flowers snap-
ping at her ankles and catching her by the hair!
Poor Persephone and her rights for women.

Husband-snared hell-queen,
It is spring.

It is spring,
And pomp of husband-strategy on earth.

Ceres, kiss your girl, you think you've got her back.
The bit of husband-tilth she is,
Persephone!

Poor mothers-in-law!
They are always sold.

It is spring.

@темы: antiquity, 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, mythology, l

---

[Lika_k]

Alanus ab Insulis (Alain de Lille, c. 1128–1202/1203)
Omnis mundi creatura
Omnis mundi creatura
quasi liber et pictura
nobis est, et speculum.
Nostrae vitae, nostrae mortis,
nostri status, nostrae sortis
fidele signaculum.

Nostrum statum pingit rosa,
nostri status decens glosa,
nostrae vitae lectio.
Quae dum primo mane floret,
defloratus flos effloret
vespertino senio.

Ergo spirans flos exspirat
in pallorem dum delirat,
oriendo moriens.
Simul vetus et novella,
simul senex et puella
rosa marcet oriens.

Sic aetatis ver humanae
iuventutis primo mane
reflorescit paululum.
Mane tamen hoc excludit
vitae vesper, dum concludit
vitale crepusculum.

Cuius decor dum perorat
eius decus mox deflorat
aetas in qua defluit.
Fit flos fenum, gemma lutum,
homo cinis, dum tributum
homo morti tribuit.

Cuius vita cuius esse,
poena, labor et necesse
vitam morte claudere.
Sic mors vitam, risum luctus,
umbra diem, portum fluctus,
mane claudit vespere.

In nos primum dat insultum
poena mortis gerens vultum,
labor mortis histrio.
Nos proponit in laborem,
nos assumit in dolorem;
mortis est conclusio.

Ergo clausum sub hac lege,
statum tuum, homo, lege,
tuum esse respice.
Quid fuisti nasciturus;
quid sis praesens, quid futurus,
diligenter inspice.

Luge poenam, culpam plange,
motus fraena, fastum frange,
pone supercilia.
Mentis rector et auriga
mentem rege, fluctus riga,
ne fluant in devia.

Алан Лилльский
Omnis mundi creaturа (Секвенция о розе)
В этом мире твари всяки
суть для нас неложны знаки,
наши отражения,
словно книги иль картины
жизни нашей, и кончины,
доли, положения.

Роза - образ нашей доли,
вроде нашей жизни схолий,
толкованье верное:
поутру цветет сначала -
глядь, уж отцвела, увяла
ветхостью вечерною.

Безуханной роза станет,
побледнеет и завянет,
смерть придет суровая.
Все пройдет, что ни родится,
будь то старец иль девица,
древнее иль новое.

Так и наши юны лета -
словно утро, час рассвета,
как весны цветение:
миг - и минет день лучистый
пред порою жизни мглистой,
перед темной тению.

Коли кто красой кичится,
красота его умчится
по теченью времени.
Почка - в почву, цвет - в солому,
в прах придется лечь любому
в человечьем племени.

Жизнь их в пенях и в заботах,
бытие - в трудах, живот их
смертью заключается.
Смертью - жизнь, веселье - горем,
тенью - дни, потоки - морем,
ночью день кончается.

Наших бед первопричина -
гистрион, чей лик - кончина,
смерти сокрушение,
кой приносит нам страданье,
вводит в горькие рыдания;
смерть - им завершение.

Чти сего закона иго
и прочти его, как книгу,
изучи внимательно,
чем ты был рождения прежде,
что ты будешь, что ты между -
поучайся тщательно.

Плачь в печали и кручине,
страсть смири, сломи гордыню,
спеси наваждение.
Духу строгий будь возница,
и не ввергни колесницу
в воды заблуждения.

пер. Шломо Крол (sentjao)

@темы: 12, music, francaise, л, middle ages, links, youtube, l

---

[Lika_k]

D. H. Lawrence
Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)
Cypresses
Tuscan cypresses,
What is it?

Folded in like a dark thought
For which the language is lost,
Tuscan cypresses,
Is there a great secret?
Are our words no good?

The undeliverable secret,
Dead with a dead race and a dead speech, and yet
Darkly monumental in you,
Etruscan cypresses.

Ah, how I admire your fidelity,
Dark cypresses!

Is it the secret of the long-nosed Etruscans?
The long-nosed, sensitive-footed, subtly-smiling Etruscans,
Who made so little noise outside the cypress groves?

Among the sinuous, flame-tall cypresses
That swayed their length of darkness all around
Etruscan-dusky, wavering men of old Etruria:
Naked except for fanciful long shoes,
Going with insidious, half-smiling quietness
And some of Africa's imperturbable sang-froid
About a forgotten business.

What business, then?
Nay, tongues are dead, and words are hollow as seed-pods,
Having shed their sound and finished all their echoing
Etruscan syllables,
That had the telling.

Yet more I see you darkly concentrate,
Tuscan cypresses,
On one old thought:
On one old slim imperishable thought, while you remain
Etruscan cypresses;
Dusky, slim marrow-thought of slender, flickering men of Etruria,
Whom Rome called vicious.

Vicious, dark cypresses:
Vicious, you supple, brooding, softly-swaying pillars of dark flame.
Monumental to a dead, dead race
Embowered in you!

Were they then vicious, the slender, tender-footed
Long-nosed men of Etruria?
Or was their way only evasive and different, dark, like cypress-trees in a wind?

They are dead, with all their vices,
And all that is left
Is the shadowy monomania of some cypresses
And tombs.

The smile, the subtle Etruscan smile still lurking
Within the tombs,
Etruscan cypresses.
He laughs longest who laughs last;
Nay, Leonardo only bungled the pure Etruscan smile.

What would I not give
To bring back the rare and orchid-like
Evil-yclept Etruscan?
For as to the evil
We have only Roman word for it,
Which I, being a little weary of Roman virtue,
Don't hang much weight on.

For oh, I know, in the dust where we have buried
The silenced races and all their abominations,
We have buried so much of the delicate magic of life.

There in the deeps
That churn the frankincense and ooze the myrrh,
Cypress shadowy,
Such an aroma of lost human life!

The say the fit survive,
But I invoke the spirits of the lost.
Those that have not survived, the darkly lost,
To bring their meaning back into life again,
Which they have taken away
And wrapt inviolable in soft cypress-trees,
Etruscan cypresses.

Evil, what is evil?
There is only one evil, to deny life
As Rome denied Etruria
And mechanical America Montezuma still.

Fiesole.

@темы: 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, l

---

[Lika_k]

Derek Walcott
Oddjob, a Bull Terrier
You prepare for one sorrow,
but another comes.
It is not like the weather,
you cannot brace yourself,
the unreadiness is all.
Your companion, the woman,
the friend next to you,
the child at your side,
and the dog,
we tremble for them,
we look seaward and muse
it will rain.
We shall get ready for rain;
you do not connect
the sunlight altering
the darkening oleanders
in the sea-garden,
the gold going out of the palms.
You do not connect this,
the fleck of the drizzle
on your flesh,
with the dog’s whimper,
the thunder doesn’t frighten,
the readiness is all;
what follows at your feet
is trying to tell you
the silence is all:
it is deeper than the readiness,
it is sea-deep,
earth-deep,
love-deep.

The silence
is stronger than thunder,
we are stricken dumb and deep
as the animals who never utter love
as we do, except
it becomes unutterable
and must be said,
in a whimper,
in tears,
in the drizzle that comes to our eyes
not uttering the loved thing’s name,
the silence of the dead,
the silence of the deepest buried love is
the one silence,
and whether we bear it for beast,
for child, for woman, or friend,
it is the one love, it is the same,
and it is blest
deepest by loss
it is blest, it is blest.

Дерек Уолкотт
Оджоб, бультерьер
Ты ждешь одну беду,
а приходит другая.
Это не то, что плохая погода,
ты не можешь собраться —
неподготовленность это все.
Мы тревожимся
за спутницу жизни, женщину,
за близкого друга,
за ребенка подле нас
и собаку,
смотрим на море и думаем:
наверное, будет дождь.
Мы приготовимся встретить дождь,
ты не видишь связи
между тем, как солнечный свет меняет
темнеющие олеандры
в приморском саду,
и тем, как меркнет золото пальм.
Не видишь связи
между каплей дождя
на твоей коже
и поскуливаньем пса,
тебя не пугает гром — готовность это все,
существо, бегущее у твоих ног,
пытается тебе сказать,
что молчание — это все,
оно превыше готовности,
глубокое, словно море,
глубокое, как земля,
глубокое, как любовь.

Молчание
сильней грома,
потрясенные, мы теряем дар речи,
будто животные, не умеющие сказать о любви,
как мы умеем, если только
она не становится невыразимой,
а нужно сказать о ней,
и мы говорим поскуливаньем,
слезами —
дождем, что подступает к глазам,
не называя любовь по имени,
молчание мертвых
и молчанье любви, схороненной на дне сердца, —
это одно и то же молчанье,
и молчим ли мы о любви,
о ребенке, женщине или о друге —
это одна и та же любовь, одна и та же,
и она блаженство,
еще невыносимее от потери,
она блаженство, она блаженство.

Пер. В. Минушин

@темы: 20, w, english-other, walcott, derek

---

[Lika_k]

D. H. Lawrence
Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)
The Revolutionary
Look at them standing there in authority
The pale-faces,
As if it could have any effect any more.

Pale-face authority,
Caryatids,
Pillars of white bronze standing rigid, lest the skies fall.

What a job they've got to keep it up.
Their poor, idealist foreheads naked capitals
To the entablature of clouded heaven.

When the skies are going to fall, fall they will
In a great chute and rush of débâcle downwards.

Oh and I wish the high and super-gothic heavens would come down now,
The heavens above, that we yearn to and aspire to.

I do not yearn, nor aspire, for I am a blind Samson.
And what is daylight to me that I should look skyward?
Only I grope among you, pale-faces, caryatids, as among a forest of pillars that hold up the dome of high ideal heaven
Which is my prison,
And all these human pillars of loftiness, going stiff, metallic-stunned with the weight of their responsibility
I stumble against them.
Stumbling-blocks, painful ones.

To keep on holding up this ideal civilisation
Must be excruciating: unless you stiffen into metal, when it is easier to stand stock rigid than to move.

This is why I tug at them, individually, with my arm round their waist
The human pillars.
They are not stronger than I am, blind Samson.
The house sways.

I shall be so glad when it comes down.
I am so tired of the limitations of their Infinite.
I am so sick of the pretensions of the Spirit.
I am so weary of pale-face importance.

Am I not blind, at the round-turning mill?
Then why should I fear their pale faces?
Or love the effulgence of their holy light,
The sun of their righteousness?

To me, all faces are dark,
All lips are dusky and valved.

Save your lips, O pale-faces,
Which are slips of metal,
Like slits in an automatic-machine, you columns of give-and-take.

To me, the earth rolls ponderously, superbly
Coming my way without forethought or afterthought.
To me, men's footfalls fall with a dull, soft rumble, ominous and lovely,
Coming my way.

But not your foot-falls, pale-faces,
They are a clicketing of bits of disjointed metal
Working in motion.

To me, men are palpable, invisible nearnesses in the dark
Sending out magnetic vibrations of warning, pitch-dark throbs of invitation.

But you, pale-faces,
You are painful, harsh-surfaced pillars that give off nothing except rigidity,
And I jut against you if I try to move, for you are everywhere, and I am blind,
Sightless among all your visuality,
You staring caryatids.

See if I don't bring you down, and all your high opinion
And all your ponderous roofed-in erection of right and wrong
Your particular heavens,
With a smash.

See if your skies aren't falling!
And my head, at least, is thick enough to stand it, the smash.

See if I don't move under a dark and nude, vast heaven
When your world is in ruins, under your fallen skies.
Caryatids, pale-faces.
See if I am not Lord of the dark and moving hosts
Before I die.

Florence.
(from "Birds, Beasts and Flowers", 1923)

@темы: 20, lawrence, d. h., english-british, l

---

[Lika_k]

Russell Edson
The Fall
There was a man who found two leaves and came
indoors holding them out saying to his parents
that he was a tree.

To which they said then go into the yard and do
not grow in the living room as your roots may
ruin the carpet.

He said I was fooling I am not a tree and he
dropped his leaves.

But his parents said look it is fall
1969

Рассел Эдсон
Осень
Жил один мальчик…
Который взял в руки два листа, вошел в дом и сказал, что он дерево.
— Ступай во двор, — ему ответили, — и не расти тут в гостиной, ты можешь испортить ковер.
Он сказал:
— Я пошутил, я не дерево, — и уронил один лист.
— Смотрите, — сказали родители, — уже осень.

Пер. Г. Кружков

Далеко не точный перевод, но сам по себе очень хороший.

@темы: э, e, 20, english-american, kruzhkov, grigory, к (rus)

---

[Lika_k]

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950)
The Unknown
Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
As a boy reckless and wanton,
Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
I shot a hawk perched on the top
Of a dead tree.
He fell with guttural cry
At my feet, his wing broken.
Then I put him in a cage
Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me
When I offered him food.
Daily I search the realms of Hades
For the soul of the hawk,
That I may offer him the friendship
Of one whom life wounded and caged.
1916

@темы: m, 20, english-american, masters, edgar lee

---

[Lika_k]

Stanisław Grochowiak
Ręce królowej posmarowane smalcem
Uszy królowej pozatykane watą
W ustach królowej sztuczna szczęka z gipsu
Piersi królowej utoczone z drewna

A ja tu przyniosłem język ciepły winem
W ustach szumiącą musującą ślinę
Piersi królowej utoczone z drewna

W domu królowej więdnie żółta świeca
W łożu królowej termofor ziębnieje
Lustra królowej zakryte brezentem
W szklance królowej rdzewieje strzykawka

A ja tu przyniosłem młody brzuch napięty
Zęby napięte niby instrumenty
Piersi królowej utoczone z drewna

Z włosów królowej opadają liście
Z oczu królowej spada pajęczyna
Serce królowej pęka z cichym sykiem
Oddech królowej żółknieje na szybie

A ja tu przyniosłem gołębia w koszyku
Całą wiązankę złotych baloników
Z włosów królowej opadają liście

Станислав Гроховяк
Руки королевы намазаны жиром
Уши королевы заткнуты ватой
У нее - вставная челюсть из гипса
Из дерева выточена грудь королевы

А у меня язык от вина жаркий
И горячая слюна во рту пенится
Но из дерева выточена грудь королевы

В доме королевы вянут желтые свечи
В постели королевы остывает грелка
Зеркала королевы затянуты брезентом
И шприц ржавеет в стакане королевы

А у меня живот молодой упругий
Зубы настроены как инструменты
Но из дерева выточена грудь королевы

Опадают листья волос королевы
Паутина из глаз королевы виснет
С тихим вздохом лопается сердце королевы
И дыхание на стекле оконном желтеет

А у меня голубь в этой корзине
И шаров золотых целая связка
Но листья волос королевы опадают

Пер. Булат Окуджава

@темы: polish, g, 20, г (rus), о (rus), russian

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[Lika_k]

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
Renascence and Other Poems, 1917
1. Renascence
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I’ll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And—sure enough!—I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I ’most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick’ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not,—nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,—
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,—then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I 95
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more,—there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatchèd roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who’s six feet under ground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!
Before the wild wind’s whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealèd sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—
I know not how such things can be!—
I breathed my soul back into me.
Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

@темы: m, 20, millay, edna st. vincent, english-american

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[Lika_k]

Густаво Адольфо Беккер
Я не спал, я странствовал по краю,
где меняют вещи очертанья,
по пространствам тайным, создающим
между сном и бденьем расстоянье.

Мысли в молчаливом хороводе
в голове без устали мелькали
и, кружась в своем бесшумном танце,
постепенно танец замедляли.

Отблеск, проникающий снаружи,
все еще на веках сохранялся,
но сиял иначе мир видений -
изнутри он светом озарялся.

Я услышал, словно в дальнем храме
смутный шум, под сводами разлитый
в час, когда кончают прихожане,
прошептав "аминь", свои молитвы.

И меня по имени окликнул
чей-то голос, слабый и печальный,
и запахло сыростью и воском,
ладаном, потухшими свечами.

Ночь пришла; упав на дно забвенья,
я заснул; проснулся отчего-то
и вскричал: "Из тех, кого любил я,
этой ночью, верно, умер кто-то!"

пер. Н. Ванханен

@темы: espanol, б, 19

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[Lika_k]

Claude McKay (1889–1948)
Dawn in New York
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Almost the mighty city is asleep,
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.
But here and there a few cars groaning creep
Along, above, and underneath the street,
Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,
The women and the men of garish nights,
Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry,
Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.
The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York.
And I go darkly-rebel to my work.

@темы: m, 20, english-american, harlem renaissance

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[Lika_k]

Михаил Кузмин
Красное солнце в окно ударило,
Солнце новолетнее...
На двенадцать месяцев все состарилось...
Теперь незаметнее -
Как-то не жалко и все равно,
Только смотришь, как солнце ударяет в окно.

На полу квадраты янтарно-дынные
Ложатся так весело.
Как прошли, не помню, дни пустынные,
Что-то их занавесило.
Как неделю, прожил полсотню недель,
А сестры-пряхи все прядут кудель.

Скоро, пожалуй, пойду я дорогою...
Не избегнут ее ни глупцы, ни гении...
На иконы смотрю не с тревогою,
А сердце в весеннем волнении.
Ну что ж? Заплачу, как тебя обниму,
Что есть в суме, с тем и пойду.

1916

@темы: 20, к (rus), russian

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[Lika_k]

Elizabeth Bishop
Letter to N.Y.
For Louise Crane
In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays, and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

—Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.

@темы: b, 20, english-american

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[Lika_k]

Казис Брадунас
По пути
Мы трава под косой судьбины,
Нас умчало вдаль от корней,
От земли, где дремлют руины,
Где она, а не память о ней.

И ослепнув, отыщем путь,
Чтоб у ног её прикорнуть.
1917
пер. Г. Ефремов

@темы: б, 20, lietuviu,

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[Lika_k]

Rupert Brooke
The Great Lover
I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love’s praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men’s days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame:--we have beaconed the world’s night.
A city:--and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor:--we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love’s magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I’ll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming . . . .

These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such--
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair’s fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year’s ferns. . . .
Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water’s dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body’s pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;--
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They’ll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love’s trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
----Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what’s left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
But the best I’ve known
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
Nothing remains.

O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, ‘All these were lovely’; say, ‘He loved.'

@темы: b, 20, english-british