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Перевод Д. Смирнова-Садовского
Francis Thompson (1859–1907)
The Kingdom of God
“The Kingdom of God is within you”. O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars! —
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places; —
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry, — clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Ge
The Veteran of Heaven
O Captain of the wars, whence won ye so great scars?
In what fight did ye smite, and what ma
Was it on a day of rout they compassed thee about,
Or gat ye these adornings when ye wrought their overthrow?
‘Twas on a day of rout they girded me about,
They wounded all my brow, and they smote me through the side:
My hand held no sword when I met their armèd horde,
And the conqueror fell down, and the Conquered bruised his pride’.
What is this, unheard before, that the Unarmed make war,
And the Slain hath the gain, and the Victor hath the rout?
What wars, then, are these, and what the enemies,
Strange Chief, with the scars of thy conquest trenched about?
‘The Prince I drave forth held the Mount of the North,
Girt with the guards of flame that roll round the pole.
I drave him with my wars from all his fortress-stars,
And the sea of death divided that my march might strike its goal.
‘In the keep of Northern Guard, many a great dæmonian sword
Burns as it turns round the Mount occult apart:
There is given him power and place still for some certain days,
And his name would turn the Sun’s blood back upon its heart’.
What is Thy Name? Oh, show! — ‘My Name ye may not know;
’Tis a going forth with ba
But my titles that are high, are they not upon my thigh?
“King of Kings!” are the words, “Lord of Lords!”
It is written “King of Kings, Lord of Lords”’.
A Dead Astronomer
(Father Perry, S.J.)
Starry amorist, starward gone,
Thou art-what thou didst gaze upon!
Passed through thy golden garden’s bars,
Thou seest the Gardener of the Stars.
She, about whose moon-ed brows
Seven stars make seven glows,
Seven lights for seven woes;
She, like thine own Galaxy,
All lustres in one purity: —
What said’st thou, Astronomer,
When thou did’st discover HER?
When thy hand its tube let fall,
Thou found’st the fairest Star of all!
The Hound of Heaven
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under ru
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat — and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me’.
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside).