Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах (билингва)

Under the shadow of a hawthorn brake,
Where bluebells draw the sky down to the wood,
Where, ’mid brown leaves, the primroses awake
And hidden violets smell of solitude;
Beneath green leaves bright-fluttered by the wing
Of fleeting, beautiful, immortal Spring,
I should have said, “I love you”, and your eyes
Have said, “I, too…” The gods saw otherwise.

For this is winter, and the London streets

Are full of soldiers from that far, fierce fray
Where life knows death, and where poor glory meets
Full-face with shame, and weeps and turns away.
And in the broken, trampled foreign wood
Is horror, and the terrible scent of blood,
And love shines tremulous, like a drowning star,
Under the shadow of the wings of war.

Spring in War-Time

Now the sprinkled blackthorn snow
Lies along the lovers’ lane
Where last year we used to go —
Where we shall not go again.

In the hedge the buds are new,

By our wood the violets peer —
Just like last year’s violets, too,
But they have no scent this year.

Every bird has heart to sing

Of its nest, warmed by its breast;
We had heart to sing last spring,
But we never built our nest.

Presently red roses blown

Will make all the garden gay.
Not yet have the daisies grown
On your clay.

The Fields of Flanders

Last year the fields were all glad and gay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river’s edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.

This year the fields are trampled and brown,

The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.

And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,

The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.

The changing seasons will bring again

The magic of Spring to our wood and plain:
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen
The crosses will still be black in the green.

The God of battles shall judge the foe

Who trampled our country and laid her low.
God! hold our hands on the reckoning day,
Lest all we owe them we should repay.

Эдит Несбит (1858–1924)

В лазарете