Стихи и эссе

Оден Уистан Хью

"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"

Some say that love 's a little boy, And some say it's a bird, Some say it makes the world go round, And some say that's absurd, And when I asked the man next-door, Who looked as if he knew, His wife got very cross indeed, And said it wouldn't do. Does it look like a pair of pyjamas, Or the ham in a temperance hotel? Does its odour remind one of llamas, Or has it a comforting smell? Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is, Or soft as eiderdown fluff? Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges? O tell me the truth about love. Our history books refer to it In cryptic little notes. It's quite a common topic on The Transatlantic boats; I've found the subject mentioned in Account of suicides, And even seen it scribbled on The back of railway-guides. Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian, Or boom like a military band? Could one give a first-rate imitation On a saw or a Steinway Grand? Is it's singing at parties a riot? Does it only like classical stuff? Will it stop when one wants to be quiet? O tell me the truth about love. I looked inside the summer-house; It wasn't ever there: I tried the Thames at Maidenhead, And Brighton's bracing air. I don't know what the blackbird sang, Or what the tulip said; But it wasn't in the chicken-run, Or underneath the bed. Can it pull extraordinary faces? Is it usually sick on a swing? Does it spend all its time at the races, Or fiddling with pieces of string? Has it views of its own about money? Does it think Patriotism enough? Are its stories vulgar but funny? O tell me the truth about love. When it comes, will it come without warning Just as I'm picking my nose? Will it knock on my door in the morning, Or tread in the bus on my toes? Will it come like a change in the weather? Will its greeting be courteous or rough? Will it alter my life altogether? O tell me the truth about love.

Their Lonely Betters

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade To all the noises that my garden made, It seemed to me only proper that words Should be withheld from vegetables and birds. A robin with no Christian name ran through The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew, And rustling flowers for some third party waited To say which pairs, if any, should get mated. Not one of them was capable of lying, There was not one which knew that it was dying Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme Assumed responsibility for time. Let them leave language to their lonely betters Who count some days and long for certain letters; We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep: Words are for those with promises to keep.

Shorts

Pick a quarrel, go to war, Leave the hero in the bar; Hunt the lion, climb the peak: No one guesses you are weak. The friends of the born nurse Are always getting worse. I'm beginning to lose patience With my personal relations: They are not deep, And they are not cheap. 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. Those who will not reason Perish in the act; Those who will not act Perish for that reason. Let us honor if we can The vertical man, Though we value none But the horizontal one. Private faces In public places Are wiser and nicer Than public faces In private places. The conversation of birds Say very little, But mean a great deal. Among the mammals Only Man has ears That can display no emotion. In moments of joy All of us wish we possessed A tail we could wag. The shame in ageing is not that Desire should fail (Who mourns for something he no longer needs?): it is That someone else must be told. The tyrant's device: Whatever is Posiible Is Necessary. Passing Beauty still delights him, but he no longer has to turn round. Does God ever judge us by appearances? I suspect that He does. Today two poems begged to be written: I had to refuse them. Sorry, no longer, my dear! Sorry, my precious, not yet! Only look in the mirror to detect a removable blamish, As of the permanent ones already you know quite enough. God never makes knots, But is expert, if asked to, At untying them. A poet's hope: to be, Like some valley cheese, Local, but prized elsewhere.

WORDS

A sentence uttered makes a world appear Where all things happen as it says they do; We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear: Words have no word for words that are not true. Syntactically, though, it must be clear; One cannot change the subject half-way through, Nor alter tenses to appease the ear: Arcadian tales are hard-luck stories too. But should we want to gossip all the time, Were fact not fiction for us at its best, Or find a charm in syllables that rhyme, Were not our fate by verbal chance expressed, As rustics in a ring-dance pantomime The Knight at some lone cross-roads of his quest?