Уистан Оден - Стихи и эссе

• Название: Стихи и эссе
• Автор: Уистан Оден
• Жанр: Публицистика

УИСТЕН ХЬЮ ОДЕН (WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN; 1907–1973) — англо-американский поэт, драматург, публицист, критик. С 1939 года жил в США. Лауреат Пулицеровской и других литературных премий. Автор многих поэтических сборников, среди которых «Танец смерти» («The Dance of Death», 1933), «Гляди, незнакомец!» («Look, Stranger!», 1936), «Испания» («Spain», 1937), «Век тревоги» («The Age of Anxiety», 1947), «Щит Ахилла» («The Shield of Achilles», 1955), «Избранные стихи» («Collected Shorter Poems», 1968).

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"Carry Her Over The Water"

Carry her over the water,
And set her down under the tree,
Where the culvers white all day and all night,
And the winds from every quarter,
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

Put a gold ring on her finger,
And press her close to your heart,
While the fish in the lake snapshots take,
And the frog, that sanguine singer,
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

The streets shal flock to your marriage,
The houses turn round to look,
The tables and chairs say suitable prayers,
And the horses drawing your carriage
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

1939?

THE TRAVELLER

No window in his suburb lights that bedroom where
A little fever heard large afternoons at play:
His meadows multiply: that mill, though is not there
Which went on grinding at the back of love all day.
Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have found
The Castle where his Greater Hallows are interned:
For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets round
Some ruin where an evil heritage was burned.
Could he forget a child's ambition to be old
And institutions where he learned to wash and lie'
He'd tell the truth for which he thinks himself too young,
That everywhere on the horizon of his sigh
Is now, as always, only waiting to be told
To be his father's house and speak his mother's tongue.

"Out of it steps the future of the poor,"

Out of it steps the future of the poor,
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
The red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.
Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.
We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made
Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine, and,
Simply by being tiny made her cry.

Lullaby

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephermeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's sensual ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreadful cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but not from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless.
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

O What Is That Sound

O what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down inthe valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming.

O what is that light I see flashing so clear
Over the distance brightly, brightly?
Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
As they step lightly.

O what are they doing with all that gear
What are they doing this morning, this morning?
Only the usual manoeuvres, dear,
Or perhaps a warning.

O why have they left the road down there
Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
Perhaps a change in the orders, dear,
Why are you kneeling?

O haven't they stopped for the doctor's care
Haven't they reined their horses, their horses?
Why, they are none of them wounded, dear,
None of these forces.

O is it the parson they want with white hair;
Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit.

O it must be the farmer who lives so near
It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning?
They have passed the farm already, dear,
And now they are running.

O where are you going? stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore me deceiving, deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
But I must be leaving.

O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the gate where they're turning, turning
Their feet are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.

The Fall of Rome W. H. Auden

(for Cyril Connolly)

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

TWO SONGS FOR HEDLI ANDERSON

I

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put cr?pe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

II

O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; 'O Johnny, let's play':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity Matinee Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
'Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver and golden silk gown;
'O John I'm in heaven,' I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
'O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:
But you frowned like thunder and you went away.

Give me a doctor

Give me a doctor partridge-plump,
Short in the leg and broad in the rump,
An endomorph with gentle hands
Who'll never make absurd demands
That I abandon all my vices
Nor pull a long face in a crisis,
But with a twinkle in his eye
Will tell me that I have to die.

1951

О тиранах

Small tyrants, threatened by big,
Sincerely believe
They love Liberty.

* * *

Tyrants may get slain,
But their hangmen usually
Die in their beds.

* * *

The tyrant's device:
Whatever is Possible
Is Necessary.

* * *

When Chiefs of State
Prefer to work at night,
Let the citizen beware.

Iceland revisited (for Basil and Susan Boothby) Encounter July 1964

* * *

Unwashed, unshat,
He was whisked from the plane
To a lunch in his honour.

* * *

He hears a 1oud-speaker
Call him wen known,
But knows himself no better.

* * *

The desolate fjord
Denied the possibility
Of many gods.

* * *

Twenty-eight years ago
Three slept well here.
Now one is married, one dead,

Where the harmonium stood
A radio:¬
Have the Fittest survived?

* * *

Unable to speak Icelandic,
He helped instead
To do the dishes.

* * *

The bondi's sheep-dog
and the visitor from New York
Conversed freely.

* * *

Snow had camouflaged
The pool of liquid manure:
The town-mouse fell in.

* * *

A blizzard. A bare room.
Thoughts of the past.
He forgot to wind his watch.

* * *

The gale howled over lava. Suddenly,
In the storm's eye,
A dark speck,

Perseus in an air-taxi,
Come to snatch
Shivering Andromeda

Out of the wilderness
And bring her back
To hot baths, cocktails, habits.

* * *

Once more
A child's dream verified
The magical light beyond Hekla.

* * *

Fortunate island,
Where all men are equal
But not vulgar-not yet.

THE PRESUMPTUOUS

They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was a daring as they thought him,
But these peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel with the broken leg had taught him
The right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory:
And stuck hallway to settle in some cave
With desert lions in domesticity
Or turned aside to be absurdly brave
And met the ogre and were turned on stone.

Короткие стихи 1929-1931