Волшебница Шалотт и другие стихотворения - [38]

Чтоб с грустью ее и весельем

Вздыматься и падать опять.

И я бы мечтал об одном, об одном —

Чтоб снять забывали меня перед сном.

С. Маршак

THE SKIPPING-ROPE

Sure never yet was antelope

Could skip so lightly by.

Stand off, or else my skipping-rope

Will hit you in the eye.

How lightly whirls the skipping-rope!

How fairy-like you fly!

Go, get you gone, you muse and mope

I hate that silly sigh.

Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,

Or tell me how to die.

There, take it, take my skipping-rope,

And hang yourself thereby.

СКАКАЛОЧКА

— О сколь упруг скакалки стук,

Прыжки твои легки!

— Подальше отойдите, сэр,

Не то собью очки.

— Ты веселей беспечных фей,

О чудо без причуд!

— Прошу вас, удалитесь, сэр,

И не вздыхайте тут.

— Один урок! чтоб жить я мог

И брать с тебя пример!

— Возьмите прыгалку мою

И удавитесь, сэр.

М. Бородицкая

SONNET (Me my own Fate to lasting sorrow doometh)

Me my own Fate to lasting sorrow doometh:

Thy woes are birds of passage, transitory:

Thy spirit, circled with a living glory,

In summer still a summer joy resumeth.

Alone my hopeless melancholy gloometh,

Like a lone cypress, through the twilight hoary,

From an old garden where no flower bloometh,

One cypress on an inland promontory.

But yet my lonely spirit follows thine,

As round the rolling earth night follows day:

But yet thy lights on my horizon shine

Into my night, when thou art far away.

I am so dark, alas! and thou so bright,

When we two meet there’s never perfect light.

СОНЕТ (Моя печаль всегда во мне живет)

Моя печаль всегда во мне живет,

Твоя печаль проносится как птица:

На краткий миг лишь ею омрачится

Души твоей полдневный небосвод.

Печаль моя в седую бездну вод

С утеса одинокого глядится,

Как кипарис; и не блеснет денница,

И ни былинки рядом не взойдет.

Но вечно мчится дух мой одинокий

Вслед за твоим, как ночь за днем вослед,

И горизонт пустынный и далекий

Мне озаряет твой летящий свет.

Ты — луч, я — мрак, и дело безнадежно:

Нельзя нам врозь, и вместе невозможно.

М. Бородицкая

SONNET (There are three things which fill my heart with sighs)

There are three things which fill my heart with sighs,

And steep my soul in laughter (when I view

Fair maiden-forms moving like melodies)

Dimples, roselips, and eyes of any hue.

There are three things beneath the blessed skies

For which I live, black eyes and brown and blue:

I hold them all most dear, but oh! black eyes,

I live and die, and only die for you.

Of late such eyes looked at me — while I mused,

At sunset, underneath a shadowy plane,

In old Bayona nigh the southern sea —

From an half-open lattice looked at me,

I saw no more — only those eyes — confused

And dazzled to the heart with glorious pain.

СОНЕТ (Три вещи есть — их перечислю кратко)

Три вещи есть — их перечислю кратко —

Они как гармонический напев

Для сердца, как целебная облатка:

То губки, щечки, глазки милых дев.

От глаз небесных я вздыхаю сладко,

Читаю в карих радость или гнев,

Но жизнь отдать готов я без остатка

За черные, едва в них поглядев.

Три цвета есть… но в улочках Байонны,

Где тень платанов и морская соль,

Из-за ограды взгляд черней агата

Мне брошен был однажды в час заката —

И в грудь мою, как уголь раскаленный,

Вонзилась ослепительная боль.

М. Бородицкая

LADY CLARE

It was the time when lilies blow,

And clouds are highest up in air,

Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe

To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn:

Lovers long-betroth’d were they:

They two will wed the morrow morn:

God’s blessing on the day!

‘He does not love me for my birth,

Nor for my lands so broad and fair;

He loves me for my own true worth,

And that is well,’ said Lady Clare.

In there came old Alice the nurse,

Said, ‘Who was this that went from thee?’

‘It was my cousin,’ said Lady Clare,

‘To-morrow he weds with me.’

‘O God be thank’d!’ said Alice the nurse,

‘That all comes round so just and fair:

Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,

And you are not the Lady Clare.’

‘Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?’

Said Lady Clare, ‘that ye speak so wild?’

‘As God’s above,’ said Alice the nurse,

‘I speak the truth: you are my child.

‘The old Earl’s daughter died at my breast;

I speak the truth, as I live by bread!

I buried her like my own sweet child,

And put my child in her stead.’

‘Falsely, falsely have ye done,

О mother,’ she said, ‘if this be true,

To keep the best man under the sun

So many years from his due.’

‘Nay now, my child,’ said Alice the nurse,

‘But keep the secret for your life,

And all you have will be Lord Ronald’s,

When you are man and wife.’

‘If I’m a beggar born,’ she said,

‘I will speak out, for I dare not lie.

Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold,

And fling the diamond necklace by.’

‘Nay now, my child,’ said Alice the nurse,

‘But keep the secret all ye can.’

She said, ‘Not so: but I will know

If there be any faith in man.’

‘Nay now, what faith?’ said Alice the nurse,

‘The man will cleave unto his right.’

‘And he shall have it,’ the lady replied,

‘Tho’ I should die to-night.’

‘Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!

Alas, my child, I sinn’d for thee.’

‘O mother, mother, mother,’ she said,

‘So strange it seems to me.

‘Yet here’s a kiss for my mother dear,

My mother dear, if this be so,