Баллада притворного приверженца

Название — "Ballade of an Artificial Satellite", конечно переводится как "Баллада об искусственном спутнике". Перевод не из лучших, а название переводчицы, похоже вообще не поняли, но другого перевода, к сожалению, до сих пор нет… (прим. OCR)

См. оригинальный текст:

Ballade of an Artificial Satellite

Thence they sailed far to the southward along the land, and came to a ness; the land lay upon the right; there were long and sandy strands. They rowed to land, and found there upon the ness the keel of a ship, and called the place Keeless, and the strands they called Wonderstrands for it took a long time to sail by them.

Thorfinn Karlsefni’s Voyage to Vinland

One inland summer I walked through rye,

a wind at my heels that smelled of rain

and harried white clouds through a whistling sky

where the great sun stalked and shook his mane

and roared so brightly across the grain

it burned and shimmered like alien sands.-

Ten years old, I saw down a lane

the thunderous light on Wonderstrands.

In ages before the world ran dry,

what might the mapless not contain?

Atlantis gleamed like a dream to die,

Avalon lay under faerie reign,

Cibola guarded a golden plain,

Tir-nan-Og was fair-locked Fand’s,

sober men saw from a gull’s-road wain

the thunderous light on Wonderstrands.

Such clanging countries in cloudland lie;

but men grew weary and they grew sane

and they grew grown — and so did I —

and knew Tartessus was only in Spain.

No galleons called at Taprobane

(Ceylon, with English); no queenly hands

wear gold from Punt; nor sees the Dane

the thunderous light on Wonderstrands.

Ahoy, Prince Andros Horizen’s-bane!

They always wait, the elven lands.

An evening planet gives again

the thunderous light on Wonderstrands.

Обложка журнала "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", October 1958