Стихи и эссе

Оден Уистан Хью

Uncle Henry

When the Flyin’ Scot [138] fills for shootin’, I go southward, wisin’ after coffee, leavin’ Lady Starkie. Weady for some fun, visit yearly Wome, Damascus, in Mowocco look for fwesh a — — musin’ places. Where I’ll find a fwend, don’t you know, a charmin’ creature, like a Gweek God and devoted: how delicious! All they have they bwing, Abdul, Nino, Manfwed, Kosta: here’s to women for they bear such lovely kiddies!

138

Flyin’ Scot = Flying Scotchman = "Летучий шотландец" (экспресс Лондон — Эдинбург). Сезон охоты на дичь в Англии

и Шотландии длится с сентября по январь. Так что в первых строках дядюшка говорит о наступлении осени

Adolescence

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters."

(King James Bible, Psalms 23:2) [139]

By landscape reminded once of his mother's figure The mountain heights he remembers get bigger and bigger With the finest of mapping pens he fondly traces All the family names on the familiar places. In a green pasture straying, he walks by still waters; Surely a swan he seems to earth's unwise daughters, Bending a beautiful head, worshipping not lying, 'Dear' the dear beak in the dear concha crying. Under the trees the summer bands were playing; 'Dear boy, be brave as these roots', he heard them saying: Carries the good news gladly to a world in danger, Is ready to argue, he smiles, with any stranger. And yet this prophet, homing the day is ended, Receives odd welcome from the country he so defended: The band roars 'Coward, Coward', in his human fever, The giantess shuffles near, cries 'Deceiver'.

139

"Он покоит меня на злачных пажитях и водит меня к водам тихим."

(Псалтирь 22:2)

Are You There?

Each lover has some theory of his own About the difference between the ache Of being with his love, and being alone: Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone That really stirs the senses, when awake, Appears a simulacrum of his own. Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown; He cannot join his image in the lake So long as he assumes he is alone. The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone, Are always up to mischief, though, and take The universe for granted as their own. The elderly, like Proust, are always prone To think of love as a subjective fake; The more they love, the more they feel alone. Whatever view we hold, it must be shown Why every lover has a wish to make Some kind of otherness his own: Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.

Blues (For Hedli Anderson)

Ladies and gentlemen, sitting here, Eating and drinking and warming a chair, Feeling and thinking and drawing your breath, Who’s sitting next to you? It may be Death. As a high-stepping blondie with eyes of blue In the subway, on beaches, Death looks at you; And married or single or young or old, You’ll become a sugar daddy and do as you’re told. Death is a G-man. You may think yourself smart, But he’ll send you to the hot-seat or plug you through the heart; He may be a slow worker, but in the end He’ll get you for the crime of being born, my friend. Death as a doctor has first-class degrees; The world is on his panel; he charges no fees; He listens to your chest, says — "You’re breathing. That’s bad. But don’t worry; we’ll soon see to that, my lad." Death knocks at your door selling real estate, The value of which will not depreciate; It’s easy, it’s convenient, it’s old world. You’ll sign, Whatever your income, on the dotted line. Death as a teacher is simply grand; The dumbest pupil can understand. He has only one subject and that is the Tomb; But no one ever yawns or asks to leave the room. So whether you’re standing broke in the rain, Or playing poker or drinking champagne, Death’s looking for you, he’s already on the way, So look out for him tomorrow or perhaps today.

Detective Story

For who is ever quite without his landscape, The straggling village street, the house in trees, All near the church, or else the gloomy town house, The one with the Corinthian pillars, or The tiny workmanlike flat: in any case A home, the centre where the three or four things That happen to a man do happen? Yes, Who cannot draw the map of his life, shade in The little station where he meets his loves And says good-bye continually, and mark the spot Where the body of his happiness was first discovered? An unknown tramp? A rich man? An enigma always And with a buried past but when the truth, The truth about our happiness comes out How much it owed to blackmail and philandering. The rest's traditional. All goes to plan: The feud between the local common sense And that exasperating brilliant intuition That's always on the spot by chance before us; All goes to plan, both lying and confession, Down to the thrilling final chase, the kill. Yet on the last page just a lingering doubt: That verdict, was it just? The judge's nerves, That clue, that protestation from the gallows, And our own smile… why yes… But time is always killed. Someone must pay for Our loss of happiness, our happiness itself.

(1936)

A New Age

So an age ended, and its last deliverer died In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe: The sudden shadow of a giant's enormous calf Would fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside. They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death, But in a year the slot had vanished from the heath; A kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out. Only the sculptors and the poets were half-sad, And the pert retinue from the magician's house Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanquished powers were glad To be invisible and free; without remorse Struck down the silly sons who strayed into their course, And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.

[140]

Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier

To save your world you asked this man to die: Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

Base words are uttered

Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood, But noble platitudes:-ah, there's a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that's genuinely good From one that's base but merely has succeeded.

140

Это

стихотворение Оден переделывал несколько раз.

Мне известны три его различных варианта.

Приведенный здесь взят из

W. H. Auden. Collected Poems, ed. by Edward Mendelson,

N. Y.: Modern Library, 2007.

We're Late

Clocks cannot tell our time of day For what event to pray Because we have no time, because We have no time until We know what time we fill, Why time is other than time was. Nor can our question satisfy The answer in the statue's eye: Only the living ask whose brow May wear the Roman laurel now; The dead say only how. What happens to the living when we die? Death is not understood by Death; nor You, nor I.

The door

Out of steps the future of the poor, Enigmas, execuOut of steps tioners and rules, Her Majesty in a bad temper or The red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools. Great person 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 panel when we die: By happening to be open ones, it made Enormous Alice see in wonderland That waited for her in the sunshine, and, Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

No time

Clocks cannot tell our time of day For what event to pray, Because we have no time, because We have no time until We know what time we fill, Why time is other than time was. Nor can our question satisfy The answer in the statue’s eye. Only the living ask whose brow May wear the roman laurel now: The dead say only how. What happens to the living when they die? Death is not understood by death: nor you, nor I.