class="book">MINIVER CHEEVY

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,

Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;

He wept that he was ever born,

And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old

When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;

The vision of a warrior bold

Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,

And dreamed, and rested from his labors-

He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,

And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown

That made so many a name so fragrant-

He mourned Romance, now on the town,

And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,

Albeit he had never seen one;

He would have sinned incessantly

Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace

And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;

He missed the mediaeval grace

Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,

But sore annoyed was he without if

Miniver thought, and thought, and thought

And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,

Scratched his head and kept on thinking-

Miniver coughed, and called it fate,

And kept on drinking.

МИНИВЕР ЧИВИ

Минивер Чиви свой удел

Клял и поры своей стыдился,

Худел, мрачнел и сожалел,

Что он родился.

Минивер, предан старине,

Пожалуй, если увидал бы

Рыцаря в латах на коне,

То заплясал бы.

Минивер всех людских забот

Бежал и знал свое упрямо:

Афины, Фивы, Камелот,

Друзья Приама.

Минивер плакал, что с былой

Славой ослабли нынче узы.-

Бредет Романтика с сумой,

И чахнут Музы.

Минивер в Медичи влюблен

Заочно был, прельстясь их званьем.

Как жаждал приобщиться он

К их злодеяньям!

Минивер будничность бранил,

Узрев солдата в форме новой,

И вспоминал про блеск брони

Средневековой.

Минивер золото презрел,

Но забывал свое презренье,

Когда терпел, терпел, терпел,

Терпел лишенья.

Минивер Чиви опоздал

Родиться и чесал в затылке,

Кряхтел, вздыхал и припадал

В слезах к бутылке.

Перевод А. Сергеева

EROS TURANNOS

She fears him, and will always ask

What fated her to choose him;

She meets in his engaging mask

All reasons to refuse him;

But what she meets and what she fears

Are less than are the downward years,

Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs

Of age, were she to lose him.

Between a blurred sagacity

That once had power to sound him,

And Love, that will not let him be

The Judas that she found him,

Her pride assuages her almost,

As if it were alone the cost.-

He sees that he will not be lost.

And waits and looks around him.

A sense of ocean and old trees

Envelops and allures him;

Tradition, touching all he sees,

Beguiles and reassures him;

And all her doubts of what he says

Are dimmed with what she knows of days-

Till even prejudice delays

And fades, and she secures him.

The falling leaf inaugurates

The reign of her confusion;

The pounding wave reverberates

The dirge of her illusion;

And home, where passion lived and died.

Becomes a plate where she can hide,

While all the town and harbor side

Vibrate with her seclusion.

We tell you, tapping on our brows,

The story as it should be,-

As if the story of a house

Were told, or ever could be;

We'll have no kindly veil between

Her visions and those we have seen,-

As if we guessed what hers have been,

Or what they are or would be.

Meanwhile we do no harm; for they

That with a god have striven,

Not hearing much of what we say,

Take what the gold has given;

Though like waves breaking it may be,

Or like a changed familiar tree,

Or like a stairway to the sea

Where down the blind are driven.

EROS TURANNOS

До сей поры ее страшит

Былое ослепленье;

Один его любезный вид

Внушает отвращенье;

Но что такое вид и страх,

Когда в клонящихся годах

Ей в одиночестве, впотьмах

Влачиться по теченью?

Хотя она давно умом

Проникла в суть Иуды,

Любви упрямой нипочем

Соседей пересуды,

А гордость — не одна она

Союзу их подчинена...

А он томится у окна,

Он и его причуды.

Его влекут в морской простор

Невидимые нити,

Цветистый осени убор

Лишь прибавляет прыти;

И пусть он ей все время врет —

Так недвусмыслен жизни ход,

Что вдруг она к нему прильнет

С мольбою о защите.

С кружащейся в глазах листвой

Вселяется смятенье;

Прибой гудит за упокой

Пустого обольщенья;

И дом с любовью неживой

Стал ей спасительной норой;

А городок звенит струной

Прямого осужденья.

Мы скажем вам, стуча по лбу,

Все то, что есть на деле,

Как будто чью-нибудь судьбу

Хоть раз понять сумели,

Как будто дар нам вещий дан

И на ее самообман

Ее глазами сквозь дурман

Мы много раз смотрели.

И вот — мы к ним не пристаем;

Уж коль они такие,

Пускай колеблются вдвоем

По прихоти стихии;

Они же, творя всерьез,—

Чета безлиственных берез

Или к пучине под откос

Бредущие слепые.

Перевод А. Сергеева

MORDRED, a fragment

 Time and the dark

Had come, but not alone. The southern gate

That had been open wide for Lancelot

Made now an entrance for three other men,

Who strode along the gravel or the grass,

Careless of who should hear them. When they came

To the great oak and the two empty chairs,

One paused, and held the others with a tongue

That sang an evil music while it spoke:

"Sit here, my admirable Colgrevance,

And you, my gentle Agravaine, sit here.

For me, well I have had enough of sitting;

And I have heard enough and seen enough

To blast a kingdom into kingdom come,

Had I so fierce a mind--which happily

I have not, for the king here is my father.

There's been a comment and a criticism

Abounding, I believe, in Camelot

For some time at my undeserved expense,

But God forbid that I should make my father

Less happy than he will be when he knows

What I shall have to tell him presently;

And that will only be what he has known

Since Merlin, or the ghost of Merlin, came

Two years ago to warn him. Though he sees,

One thing he will not see; and this must end.

We must have no blind kings in Camelot,

Or we shall have no land worth harrowing,

And our last harvest will be food for strangers.

My father, as you know, has gone a-hunting."

"We know about the king," said Agravaine,

"And you know more than any about the queen.

We are still waiting, Modred. Colgrevance

And I are waiting."

 Modred laughed at him

Indulgently: "Did I say more than any?

If so, then inadvertently I erred;