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Walter Savage Landor
1775-1864
(Уолтер Лэндор)

Я б не рыдал в твои года

WHY, why repine, my pensive friend,

At pleasures slipp'd away?

Some the stern Fates will never lend,

And all refuse to stay.

I see the rainbow in the sky,

The dew upon the grass,

I see them, and I ask not why

They glimmer or they pass.

With folded arms I linger not

To call them back; 'twere vain;

In this, or in some other spot,

I know they'll shine again.

Бог красоту вокруг рассыпал

GOD scatters beauty as he scatters flowers

O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours.

A hundred lights in every temple burn,

And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.

Свет Венеры значит меньше

The Evening Star

SMILES soon abate; the boisterous throes

Of anger long burst forth;

Inconstantly the south-wind blows,

But steadily the north.

Thy star, O Venus! often changes

Its radiant seat above,

The chilling pole-star never ranges --

'Tis thus with Hate and Love.

Я ни с кем не боролся

On His Seventy-fifth Birthday

I STROVE with none; for none was worth my strife;

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;

I warmed both hands before the fire of life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

В девятую декаду я топаю пешком

On his eighteenth birthday.

TO my ninth decade I have tottered on,

And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady;

She, who once led me where she would, is gone,

So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.

Смерть подошла и шепчет внятно

DEATH stands above me, whispering low

I know not what into my ear:

Of his strange language all I know

Is, there is not a word of fear.

Мягок был год уходящий

1     Mild is the parting year, and sweet
2         The odour of the falling spray;
3     Life passes on more rudely fleet,
4         And balmless is its closing day.

5     I wait its close, I court its gloom,
6         But mourn that never must there fall
7     Or on my breast or on my tomb
8         The tear that would have soothed it all.

Здесь в сердце имя есть одно

ONE lovely name adorns my song,

And, dwelling in the heart,

Forever falters at the tongue,

And trembles to depart.

Вечерний сумрак льётся в рамы.

Death of the Day

My pictures blacken in their frames
As night come on,
And youthful maids and wrinkled dames
Are now all one.

Death of the day! A sterner Death
Did worse before;
The fairest form, the sweetest breath,
Away he bore.

Ты улыбалась - я поверил

1     You smiled, you spoke, and I believed,
2     By every word and smile deceived.
3     Another man would hope no more;
4     Nor hope I what I hoped before:
5     But let not this last wish be vain;
6     Deceive, deceive me once again!

ЧЕТЫРЕ ГЕОРГА
Первый Жорж был всеми признан

On The Four Georges

George the First was always reckon’d
Vile - but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
When from earth the Fourth descended,
God be praised, the Georges ended.

НА ГИФФОРДА
Отчего это холод могильный в крови

William Gifford

Clap, clap the doule nightcap on!
Gifford will read you his amours...
Lazy as Scheld and cold as Don...
Kneel, and thank Heaven they are not yours.

Alas! 'tis very sad to hear,
Your and your Muse's end draws near:
I only wish, if this be true,
To lie a little way from you.
The grave is cold enough for me
Without you and yuor poetry.

© 2000 Elena and Yacov Feldman