GIPSIES
Yet are they here the same unbroken knot
Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!
Men, women, children, yea the frame
Of the whole spectacle the same!
Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light,
Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,
Their bed of straw and blanket-walls.
— Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I
Have been a traveller under open sky,
Much witnessing of change and cheer,
Yet as I left I find them here!
The weary Sun betook himself to rest; —
Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
Outshining like a visible God
The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour
And one night's diminution of her power,
Behold the mighty Moon! this way
She looks as if at them — but they
Regard not her: — oh better wrong and strife
(By nature transient) than this torpid life;
Life which the very stars reprove
As on their silent tasks they move!
Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or earth!
In scorn I speak not; — they are what their birth
And breeding suffer them to be;
Wild outcasts of society!
ЦЫГАНЫ[75]
Мужчины, женщины и дети — весь
Сплоченный род, на том же месте, здесь;
Подмостки те же — тот же луг,
И тех же лицедеев круг;
Лишь дерзостней костер ночной горит,
Придав глубокий, рдяный колорит
Цыганам смуглым, и шатрам,
И жалким травяным одрам…
Столь много перемен, в теченье дня,
Под небосводом тешили меня
В скитаниях, — но этот люд
На месте прежнем, тут как тут!
Вот солнце утомленное зашло,
И Веспер, словно некий бог, светло
Вознесся, царственно скользя,
Где пролегла его стезя;
И после краткой тьмы, когда Луна
Была развенчана, опять она
Свершает властный свой полет,
Но табор к ней молитв не шлет…
Нет! Лучше распря, лучше боль обид
Неправых, чем застывший этот быт,
Покой, которому в укор
Кружится вечно звездный хор!
Хоть в мире все и движется, но я
Не опорочу косного житья
Цыган, — Судьба взрастила их
Изгоями общин людских!
From "THE EXCURSION"
Уединение (отрывок из поэмы "ПРОГУЛКА")
"What motive drew, that impulse, I would ask…"
What motive drew, what impulse, I would ask,
Through a long course of later ages, drove,
The hermit to his cell in forest wide;
Or what detained him, till his closing eyes
Took their last farewell of the sun and stars,
Fast anchored in the desert? — Not alone
Dread of the persecuting sword, remorse,
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged
And unavengeable, defeated pride,
Prosperity subverted, maddening want,
Friendship betrayed, affection unretumed,
Love with despair, or grief in agony; —
Not always from intolerable pangs
He fled; but, compassed round by pleasure, sighed
For independent happiness; craving peace,
The central feeling of all happiness,
Not as a refuge from distress or pain,
A breathing-time, vacation, or a truce,
But for its absolute self; a life of peace,
Stability without regret or fear;
That hath been, is, and shall be evermore! —
Such the reward he sought; and wore out life,
There, where on few external things his heart
Was set, and those his own; or, if not his,
Subsisting under nature's stedfast law.
What other yearning was the master tie
Of the monastic brotherhood, upon rock
Aerial, or in green secluded vale,
One after one, collected from afar,
An undissolving fellowship? — What but this,
The universal instinct of repose,
The longing for confirmed tranquillity,
Inward and outward; humble, yet sublime:
The life where hope and memory are as one;
Where earth is quiet and her face unchanged
Save by the simplest toil of human hands
Or seasons' difference; the immortal Soul
Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed
To meditation in that quietness! —
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Перевод Арк. Штейнберга