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

To the Virginian Voyage

You brave heroic minds
Worthy your country’s name,
That honour still pursue;
Go and subdue!
Whilst loitering hinds
Lurk here at home with shame.

Britons, you stay too long:

Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretch’d sail
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.

Your course securely steer,

West and by south forth keep!
Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals
When Eolus scowls
You need not fear;
So absolute the deep.

And cheerfully at sea

Success you still entice
To get the pearl and gold,
And ours to hold
Virginia,
Earth’s only paradise.

Where nature hath in store

Fowl, venison, and fish,
And the fruitfull’st soil
Without your toil
Three harvests more,
All greater than your wish.

And the ambitious vine

Crowns with his purple mass
The cedar reaching high
To kiss the sky,
The cypress, pine,
And useful sassafras.

To whom the Golden Age

Still nature’s laws doth give,
No other cares attend,
But them to defend
From winter’s rage,
That long there doth not live.

When as the luscious smell

Of that delicious land
Above the seas that flows
The clear wind throws,
Your hearts to swell
Approaching the dear strand;

In kenning of the shore

(Thanks to God first given)
O you the happiest men,
Be frolic then!
Let cannons roar,
Frighting the wide heaven.

And in regions far,

Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we came;
And plant our name
Under that star
Not known unto our North.

And as there plenty grows

Of laurel everywhere —
Apollo’s sacred tree —
You it may see
A poet’s brows
To crown, that may sing there.

Thy Voyages attend,

Industrious Hakluyt,
Whose reading shall inflame
Men to seek fame,
And much commend
To after times thy wit.

* * *

How many paltry, foolish, painted things,
That now in coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,
Ere they be well wrapp’d in their winding-sheet?
Where I to thee eternity shall give,
When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And queens hereafter shall be glad to live
Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise.
Virgins and matrons reading these my rhymes
Shall be so much delighted with thy story,
That they shall grieve they liv’d not in these times
To have seen thee, their sex’s only glory.
So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng,
Still to survive in my immortal song.

* * *