Стихи. (В переводах разных авторов) - Уильям Йейтс

And where the wood and waters meet

We tied the horse in a leafy clump,

And Niamh blew three merry notes

Out of a little silver trump;

And then an answering whispering flew

Over the bare and woody land,

A whisper of impetuous feet,

And ever nearer, nearer grew;

And from the woods rushed out a band

Of men and ladies, hand in hand,

And singing, singing all together;

Their brows were white as fragrant milk,

Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,

And trimmed with many a crimson feather;

And when they saw the cloak I wore

Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,

They fingered it and gazed on me

And laughed like murmurs of the sea;

But Niamh with a swift distress

Bid them away and hold their peace;

And when they heard her voice they ran

And knelt there, every girl and man,

And kissed, as they would never cease,

Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.

She bade them bring us to the hall

Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,

A Druid dream of the end of days

When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways

Where drops of dew in myriads fall,

And tangled creepers every hour

Blossom in some new crimson flower,

And once a sudden laughter sprang

From all their lips, and once they sang

Together, while the dark woods rang,

And made in all their distant parts,

With boom of bees in honey-marts,

A rumour of delighted hearts.

And once a lady by my side

Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,

And touch the laughing silver string;

But when I sang of human joy

A sorrow wrapped each merry face,

And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,

Until one came, a tearful boy;

'A sadder creature never stept

Than this strange human bard, he cried;

And caught the silver harp away,

And, weeping over the white strings, hurled

It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place

That kept dim waters from the sky;

And each one said, with a long, long sigh,

'O saddest harp in all the world,

Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!

And now, still sad, we came to where

A beautiful young man dreamed within

A house of wattles, clay, and skin;

One hand upheld his beardless chin,

And one a sceptre flashing out

Wild flames of red and gold and blue,

Like to a merry wandering rout

Of dancers leaping in the air;

And men and ladies knelt them there

And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,

And with low murmurs prayed to him,

And kissed the sceptre with red lips,

And touched it with their finger-tips.

He held that flashing sceptre up.

'Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,

And fills with stars night's purple cup,

And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,

And stirs the young kid's budding horn,

And makes the infant ferns unwrap,

And for the peewit paints his cap,

And rolls along the unwieldy sun,

And makes the little planets run:

And if joy were not on the earth,

There were an end of change and birth,

And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,

And in some gloomy barrow lie

Folded like a frozen fly;

Then mock at Death and Time with glances

And wavering arms and wandering dances.

'Men's hearts of old were drops of flame

That from the saffron morning came,

Or drops of silver joy that fell

Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;

But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,

And toss and turn in narrow caves;

But here there is nor law nor rule,

Nor have hands held a weary tool;

And here there is nor Change nor Death,

But only kind and merry breath,

For joy is God and God is joy.

With one long glance for girl and boy

And the pale blossom of the moon,

He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance

We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance

And swept out of the wattled hall

And came to where the dewdrops fall

Among the foamdrops of the sea,

And there we hushed the revelry;

And, gathering on our brows a frown,

Bent all our swaying bodies down,

And to the waves that glimmer by

That sloping green De Danaan sod

Sang, 'God is joy and joy is God,

And things that have grown sad are wicked,

And things that fear the dawn of the morrow

Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.

We danced to where in the winding thicket

The damask roses, bloom on bloom,

Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.

And bending over them softly said,

Bending over them in the dance,

With a swift and friendly glance

From dewy eyes: 'Upon the dead

Fall the leaves of other roses,

On the dead dim earth encloses:

But never, never on our graves,

Heaped beside the glimmering waves,

Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.

For neither Death nor Change comes near us,

And all listless hours fear us,

And we fear no dawning morrow,

Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.

The dance wound through the windless woods;

The ever-summered solitudes;

Until the tossing arms grew still

Upon the woody central hill;

And, gathered in a panting band,

We flung on high each waving hand,

And sang unto the starry broods.

In our raised eyes there flashed a glow

Of milky brightness to and fro

As thus our song arose: 'You stars,

Across your wandering ruby cars

Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God.

He rules you with an iron rod,

He holds you with an iron bond,

Each one woven to the other,

Each one woven to his brother

Like bubbles in a frozen pond;

But we in a lonely land abide

Unchainable as the dim tide,

With hearts that know nor law nor rule,

And hands that hold no wearisome tool,

Folded in love that fears no morrow,

Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.

O Patrick! for a hundred years

I chased upon that woody shore

The deer, the badger, and the boar.

O patrick! for a hundred years

At evening on the glimmering sands,

Beside the piled-up hunting spears,

These now outworn and withered hands

Wrestled among the island bands.

O patrick! for a hundred years

We went a-fishing in long boats

With bending sterns and bending bows,

And carven figures on their prows

Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.

O patrick! for a hundred years

The gentle Niamh was my wife;

But now two things devour my life;

The things that most of all I hate:

Fasting and prayers.

S. Patrick. Tell on.

Oisin. Yes, yes,

For these were ancient Oisin's fate

Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,

For his last days to lie in wait.

When one day by the tide I stood,

I found in that forgetfulness

Of dreamy foam a staff of wood

From some dead warrior's broken lance:

I tutned it in my hands; the stains

Of war were on it, and I wept,

Remembering how the Fenians stept

Along the blood-bedabbled plains,

Equal to good or grievous chance:

Thereon young Niamh softly came

And caught my hands, but spake no word

Save only many times my name,

In murmurs, like a frighted bird.

We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,

And found the horse and bridled him,

For we knew well the old was over.

I heard one say, 'His eyes grow dim

With all the ancient sorrow of men';

And wrapped in dreams rode out again

With hoofs of the pale findrinny

Over the glimmering purple sea.

Under the golden evening light,

The Immortals moved among thc fountains

By rivers and the woods' old night;

Some danced like shadows on the mountains

Some wandered ever hand in hand;

Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,

Each forehead like an obscure star

Bent down above each hooked knee,

And sang, and with a dreamy gaze

Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze

Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;

And, as they sang, the painted birds

Kept time with their bright wings and feet;

Like drops of honey came their words,

But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

'An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,

In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.

He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,

Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;

He hears the storm in the chimney above,

And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,

While his heart still dreams of battle and love,

And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,

Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,

Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,

Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.

The hare grows old as she plays in the sun

And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;

Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done

She limps along in an aged whiteness;

A storm of birds in the Asian trees

Like tulips in the air a-winging,

And the gentle waves of the summer seas,

That raise their heads and wander singing,

Must murmur at last, "Unjust, unjust";

And "My speed is a weariness," falters the mouse,

And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,

And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.

But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day

When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh

And bid the stars drop down from the sky,

And the moon like a pale rose wither away.

Единственная ревность Эмер

Действующие лица

Три Музыканта (загримированы под маски)

Дух Кухулина (в маске)

Тело Кухулина (в маске)

Эмер (в маске или загримирована под маску)

Этне Ингуба (в маске или загримирована под маску)

Сида (в маске)

Входят Музыканты, одетые и загримированные так же, как в пьесе «У ястребиного источника». При них те же музыкальные инструменты, либо заранее стоявшие на сцене, либо внесенные Первым Музыкантом (до того, как он встанет посреди сцены с полотнищем в руках) или другим актером (после того, как развернут полотнище). Задником, как и прежде, может служить стена любого помещения; можно использовать то же самое черное полотнище, что и в пьесе «У ястребиного источника».

[Песня при развертывании и свертывании полотнища]

О, женская краса — подобье птицы,

Бессильной белой чайки одинокой,

Что после бури на заре томится

Меж двух борозд на вспаханной равнине,

Внезапным вихрем брошена далеко

Меж темных рытвин на сырой равнине.

О, сколько веков провела

В трудах непосильных душа,

Усердней крота иль орла

Расчет кропотливый верша,

И превзошла расчеты,

Превозмогла мечту,

Чтобы земною плотью

Эту облечь красоту?

О, странное, бесцельное созданье,

О, бледная жемчужница морская,

Что выброшена морем без дыханья

На гулкие пески перед рассветом:

Внезапный вал, на берег набегая,

Метнул ее во тьму перед рассветом.

В каких лабиринтах ума

Ковалась незримая связь,

Что смерть не разрубит сама,

Что жизнью не оборвалась, -

Горькой вины тенета,

Жаркого сердца стук -

Чтобы в оковы плоти

Эту увлечь красоту?

[Полотнище сворачивают, и Музыканты отходят в глубину сцены. При свернутом полотнище с одной стороны сцены обнаруживается занавешенное ложе или носилки, на которых лежит человек в погребальных одеждах. На нем героическая маска. Ближе к зрительному залу присел сгорбившись другой человек в точно таких же одеждах и маске. Эмер сидит у ложа.]

Явись пред очами, кровля,

От копоти темные балки,