Поэтический мир прерафаэлитов

Many a mile over land and sea
Unsummoned my love returned to me;
I remember not the words he said
But only the trees moaning overhead.

And he came ready to take and bear

The cross I had carried for many a year,
But words came slowly one by one
From frozen lips shut still and dumb.

How sounded my words so still and slow

To the great strong heart that loved me so,
Who came to save me from pain and wrong
And to comfort me with his love so strong?

I felt the wind strike chill and cold

And vapours rise from the red-brown mould;
I felt the spell that held my breath
Bending me down to a living death.

ОТРЫВОК ИЗ БАЛЛАДЫ

Из дальней страны, по земле и волне
Незваным любимый вернулся ко мне;
Не помню, что молвил с порога мне он,
Но помню, как ветер стонал среди крон.

Пришел он, принять в свои руки готов

Мой крест — я несла его много годов,
Но я неохотно цедила слова,
И губы немели, открывшись едва.

Должно быть, задел этот тон ледяной

Отважное сердце, что дышит лишь мной:
Домой не любовь ли его привела —
Меня охранить от обиды и зла?

И ветер ярился, и хладен и рьян,

И маревом белым оделся курган,
И словно заклятье сдавило мне грудь,
Чтоб к смерти при жизни меня подтолкнуть.

Перевод С. Лихачевой

A YEAR AND A DAY

Slow days have passed that make a year,
Slow hours that make a day,
Since I could take my first dear love
And kiss him the old way;
Yet the green leaves touch me on the cheek,
Dear Christ, this month of May.

I lie among the tall green grass

That bends above my head
And covers up my wasted face
And folds me in its bed
Tenderly and lovingly
Like grass above the dead.

Dim phantoms of an unknown ill

Float through my tired brain;
The unformed visions of my life
Pass by in ghostly train;
Some pause to touch me on the cheek,
Some scatter tears like rain.

A shadow falls along the grass

And lingers at my feet;
A new face lies between my hands —
Dear Christ, if I could weep
Tears to shut out the summer leaves
When this new face I greet.

Still it is but the memory

Of something I have seen
In the dreamy summer weather
When the green leaves came between:
The shadow of my dear love’s face —
So far and strange it seems.

The river ever running down

Between its grassy bed,
The voices of a thousand birds
That clang above my head,
Shall bring to me a sadder dream
When this sad dream is dead.

A silence falls upon my heart

And hushes all its pain.
I stretch my hands in the long grass
And fall to sleep again,
There to lie empty of all love
Like beaten corn of grain.

Arthur Hughes IN THE GRASS Oil on canvas. 1864–1865 Sheffield City Art Galleries

Артур Хьюз В ТРАВЕ Холст, масло. 1864–1865 Художественная галерея Шеффилда

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