Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

The World

By day she woos me, soft, exceeding fair:

But all night as the moon so changeth she;

Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy

And subtle serpents gliding in her hair.

By day she woos me to the outer air,

Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety:

But through the night, a beast she grins at me,

A very monster void of love and prayer.

By day she stands a lie: by night she stands

In all the naked horror of the truth

With pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.

Is this a friend indeed; that I should sell

My soul to her, give her my life and youth,

Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell?

Acme

Sleep, unforgotten sorrow, sleep awhile;

Make even awhile as tho’ I might forget,

Let the wound staunch thy tedious fingers fret

Till once again I look abroad and smile

Warmed in the sunlight: let no tears defile

This hour’s content, no conscious thorns beset

My path; O sorrow slumber, slumber yet

A moment, rouse not yet the smouldering pile.

So shalt thou wake again with added strength

O unforgotten sorrow, stir again

The slackening fire, refine the lulling pain

To quickened torture and a subtler edge:

The wrung cord snaps at last; beneath the wedge

The toughest oak groans long but rends at length.

* * *

So tired am I, so weary of to-day,

So unrefreshed from foregone weariness,

So overburdened by foreseen distress,

So lagging and so stumbling on my way,

I scarce can rouse myself to watch or pray,

To hope, or aim, or toil for more or less,—

Ah, always less and less, even while I press

Forward and toil and aim as best I may.

Half-starved of soul and heartsick utterly,

Yet lift I up my heart and soul and eyes

(Which fail in looking upward) toward the prize:

Me, Lord, Thou seest though I see not Thee;

Me now, as once the Thief in Paradise,

Even me, O Lord my Lord, remember me.

A Wintry So