Волшебница Шалотт и другие стихотворения - Теннисон Альфред (2007)

Скачи же! Цель близка!»

Вот так, минуя двор и сад,

И мост, и брод, скачу я вдаль,

Влеком вперед, из года в год,

Пока не отыщу Грааль.

Д. Катар

THE EPIC

At Francis Allen’s on the Christmas-eve, —

The game of forfeits done — the girls all kiss’d

Beneath the sacred bush and past away —

The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,

The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,

Then half-way ebb’d: and there we held a talk,

How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,

Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games

In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out

With cutting eights that day upon the pond,

Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,

I bump’d the ice into three several stars,

Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard

The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,

Now harping on the church-commissioners,

Now hawking at Geology and schism;

Until I woke, and found him settled down

Upon the general decay of faith

Right thro’ the world, ‘at home was little left,

And none abroad: there was no anchor, none,

To hold by.’ Francis, laughing, clapt his hand

On Everard’s shoulder, with ‘I hold by him.’

‘And I,’ quoth Everard, ‘by the wassail-bowl.’

‘Why yes,’ I said, ‘we knew your gift that way

At college: but another which you had,

I mean of verse (for so we held it then),

What came of that?’ ‘You know,’ said Frank, ‘he burnt

His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books’ —

And then to me demanding why? ‘Oh, sir,

He thought that nothing new was said, or else

Something so said ’twas nothing - that a truth

Looks freshest in the fashion of the day:

God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask.

It pleased me well enough.’ ‘Nay, nay,’ said Hall,

‘Why take the style of those heroic times?

For nature brings not back the Mastodon,

Nor we those times; and why should any man

Remodel models? these twelve books of mine

Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth,

Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.’ ‘But I,’

Said Francis, ‘pick’d the eleventh from this hearth

And have it: keep a thing, its use will come.

I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.’

He laugh’d, and I, tho’ sleepy, like a horse

That hears the corn-bin open, prick’d my ears;

For I remember’d Everard’s college fame

When we were Freshmen: then at my request

He brought it; and the poet little urged,

But with some prelude of disparagement,

Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes,

Deep-chested music, and to this result.

ПРОЛОГ К «СМЕРТИ АРТУРА»

У Фрэнка Аллена, под Рождество,

Покончив с фантами и всех девиц

(Уже ушедших) перецеловав,

Сидели мы одни: я, пастор Холмс,

Поэт Эверард Холл и сам хозяин —

Вкруг чаши пуншевой, почти пустой,

И разговор вели не торопясь —

О том, что праздник Рождества померк

Иль выродился в скучный ритуал

Пустых забав; а я, уставши днем

Выписывать восьмерки на пруду,

Где пару раз так треснулся об лед,

Что выбил звезды, — малость задремал

И смутно слышал, как, входя в азарт,

Священник то хвалил епископат,

То геологию бранил в сердцах,

И наконец, когда я вновь проснулся,

Гудел про общий недостаток веры:

«У нас еще осталось кое-что,

Но за границей — голо; нет основы,

Чтоб за нее держаться». Фрэнк, смеясь,

Похлопал Эверарда по плечу:

«Я за него держусь». А Эверард:

«А я — за эту пуншевую чашу».

«Ну, да, — заметил я, — еще в колледже