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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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

1

Pick a quarrel, go to war,
Leave the hero in the bar;
Hunt the lion, climb the peak:
No one guesses you are weak.

2

The friends of the born nurse
Are always getting worse.

3

When he is well
She gives him hell;
But she's a brick
When he is sick.

4

You’re a long way off becoming a saint
So long as you suffer from any complaint;
But, if you don’t, there’s no denying
The chances are that you’re not trying.

5

I am afraid there is many a spectacled sod
Prefers the British Museum to God.

6

I'm beginning to lose patience
With my personal relations:
They are not deep,
And they are not cheap.

7

Those who will not reason
Perish in the act;
Those who will not act
Perish for that reason.

8

Let us honor if we can
The vertical man,
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.

9

'These had stopped seeking
But went on speaking,
Have not contributed
But have diluted.

These ordered light
But had no right,
These handed on
War and a son.

Wishing no harm
But to be warm,
These fell asleep.
On the burning heap.

10

Private faces
In public places
Are wiser and nicer
Than public faces
In private places.

* * *

I'm beginning to lose patience
With my personal relations:
They are not deep,
And they are not cheap.

* * *

Thoughts of his own death,
like the distant roll
of thunder at a picnic.

* * *

Bound to ourselves for life,
we must learn how to
put up with each other.

* * *

Fate succumbs
many species: one alone
jeopardises itself.

* * *

The palm extended in welcome:
Look! for you
I have unclenched my fist.

* * *

Animal femurs,
ascribed to saints who never
existed, are still

more holy than portraits
of conquerors who,
unfortunately, did.

* * *

Pulling on his socks,
he recall that his gran-pa
went pop in the act.

* * *

Man must either fall in love
with Someone or Something,
or else fall ill.

* * *

Nothing can be loved too much,
but all things can be loved
in the wrong way.

* * *

I'm for freedom because I mistrust the Censor in office,
But if I held the job, my! how severe I should be!

* * *

When he is well
She gives him hell;
But she's a brick
When he is sick.

They wondered why the fruit had been forbidden…

They wondered why the fruit had been forbidden:
It taught them nothing new. They hid their pride,
But did not listen much when they were chidden:
They knew exactly what to do outside.

They left. Immediately the memory faded
Of all they known: they could not understand
The dogs now who before had always aided;
The stream was dumb with whom they'd always planned.

They wept and quarrelled: freedom was so wild.
In front maturity as he ascended
Retired like a horizon from the child,

The dangers and the punishments grew greater,
And the way back by angels was defended
Against the poet and the legislator.

At last the secret is out…

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up on the cement wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

The Chimney Sweepers

The chimney sweepers
    Wash their faces and forget to wash the neck;
The lighthouse keepers
   Let the lamps go out and leave the ships to wreck;
The prosperous baker
   Leaves the rolls in hundreds in the oven to burn;
The undertaker
   Puts a small note on the coffin saying: "Wait till I return,
I've got a date with Love!"

And deep-sea divers
   Cut their boots off and come bubbling to the top;
And engine drivers
   Bring expresses in the tunnel to a stop;
The village rector
   Dashes down the side-aisle half-way through a psalm;
The sanitary inspector
   Runs off with the cover of the cesspool on his arm —
To  keep his date with Love!

"What's in Your Mind, My Dove, My Coney…"

What's in your mind, my dove, my coney;
Do thoughts grow like feathers, the dead end of life;
Is it making of love or counting of money,
Or raid on the jewels, the plans of a thief?

Open your eyes, my dearest dallier;
Let hunt with your hands for escaping me;
Go through the motions of exploring the familiar
Stand on the brink of the warm white day.

Rise with the wind, my great big serpent;
Silence the birds and darken the air;
Change me with terror, alive in a moment;
Strike for the heart and have me there.

Happy Ending

The silly fool, the silly fool
Was sillier in school
But beat the bully as a rule

The youngest son, the youngest son
Was certainly no wise one
Yet could surprise one.

Or rather, or rather,
To be posh, we gather
One should have no father.

Simple to prove
That deeds indeed
In life succeed,
But love in love,
And tales in tales
Where no one fails.

Foxtrot from a Play

The soldier loves his rifle,
   The scholar loves his books,
The farmer loves his horses,
   The film star loves her looks.
There's love the whole world over
   Wherever you may be;
Some lose their rest for gay Mae West,
   But you're my cup of tea.

Some talk of Alexander
   And some of Fred Astaire,
Some like their heroes hairy
   Some like them debonair,
Some prefer a curate
   And some an A.D.C.,
Some like a tough to treat'em rough,
   But you're my cup of tea.

Some are mad on Airedales
   And some on Pekinese,
On tabby cats or parrots
   Or guinea pigs or geese.
There are patients in asylums
   Who think that they're a tree;
I had an ant who loved a plant,
   But you're my cup of tea.

Some have sagging waistlines
  And some a bulbous nose
And some a floating kidney
   And some have hammer toes,
Some have tennis elbow
   And some have housemaid's knee,
And some I know have got B.O.,
   But you're my cup of tea.

The blackbird loves the earthworm,
   The adder loves the sun,
The polar bear an iceberg,
  The elephant a bun,
The trout enjoys the river,
  The whale enjoys the sea,
And dogs love most an old lamp-post,
   But you're my cup of tea.

Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eatting or opening a window
                       or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On the pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot
That even the dreadful martydrom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind in a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Who is Who?

A shilling life will give you all the facts:
How Father beat him, how he ran away,
What were the struggles of his youth, what acts
Made him the greatest figure of his day

Of how he fought, fished, hunted, worked all night,
Though giddy, climbed new mountains; named a sea:
Some of the last researchers even write
Love made him weep his pints like you and me.

With all his honours on, he sighed for one,
Who, say astonished critics, lived at home;
Did little jobs about the house with skill
And nothing else; could whistle; would sit still
Or potter round the garden; answered some
Of his long marvelous letters but kept none

The Ship

All streets are brightly lit; our city is kept clean;
Her Third-Class deal from greasy packs, her First bid high;
Her beggars banished to the bows have never seen
What can be done in state-rooms: no one asks why.

Lovers are writing latters, athletes playing ball,
One doubts the virtue, one the beauty of his wife,
A boy's ambitious: perhaps the Captain hates us all;
Someone perhaps is leading a civilised life.

Slowly our Western culture in full pomp progresses
Over the barren plains of the sea;  somewhere ahead
A septic East, odd fowl and flowers, odder dresses:

Somewhere a strange and shrewd To-morrow goes to bed,
Planning a test for men from Europe; no one guesses
Who will be most ashamed, who richer, and who dead.

"O, Tell Me The Truth About Love"