Стихотворения - Владимир Набоков

424. LINES WRITTEN IN OREGON{*}

Esmeralda! Now we restHere, in the bewitched and blestMountain forests of the West.

Here the very air is stranger.Damzel, anchoret, and rangerShare the woodland's dream and danger.

And to think I deemed you dead!(In a dungeon, it was said;Tortured, strangled); but instead —

Blue birds from the bluest fable,Bear and hare in coats of sable,Peacock moth on picnic table.

Huddled roadsigns softly speakOf Lake Merlin, Castle Creek,And (obliterated) Peak.

Do you recognize that clover?Dandelions, I'or du pauvre?[17](Europe, nonetheless, is over).

Up the turf, along the burn,Latin lilies climb and turnInto Gothic fir and fern.

Cornfields have befouled the prairiesBut these canyons laugh! And there isStill the forest with its fairies.

And I rest where I awokeIn the sea shade — l'ombre glauque[18]—Of a legendary oak;

Where the woods get ever dimmer,Where the Phantom Orchids glimmer —Esmeralda, immer, immer.[19]

425. ODE TO A MODEL{*}

I have followed you, model,in magazine ads through all seasons,from dead leaf on the sodto red leaf on the breeze,

from your lily-white armpitto the tip of your butterfly eyelash,charming and pitiful,silly and stylish.

Or in kneesocks and tartanstanding there like some fabulous symbol,parted feet pointing outward— pedal form of akimbo.

On a lawn, in a parodyOf Spring and its cherry tree,near a vase and a parapet,virgin practicing archery.

Ballerina, black-masked,near a parapet of alabaster.«Can one — somebody asked —rhyme „star“ and „disaster“?»

Can one picture a blackbirdas the negative of a small firebird?Can a record, run backward,turn «repaid» into «diaper»?

Can one marry a model?Kill your past, make you real, raise a family,by removing you bodilyfrom back numbers of Sham?

426. ON TRANSLATING «EUGENE ONEGIN»{*}

1 What is translation? On a platterA poet's pale and glaring heard,A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter,And profanation of the dead.The parasites you were so hard onAre pardoned if I have your pardon,O, Pushkin, for my stratagem:I traveled down your secret stem,And reached the root, and fed upon it;Then, in a language newly learned,I grew another stem and turnedYour stanza patterned on a sonnet,Into my honest roadside prose —All thorn, but cousin to your rose.

2 Reflected words can only shiverLike elongated lights that twistIn the black mirror of a riverBetween the city and the mist.Elusive Pushkin! Persevering,I still pick up Tatiana's earring,Still travel with your sullen rake.I find another man's mistake,I analyze alliterationsThat grace your feasts and haunt the greatFourth stanza of your Canto Eight.This is my task — a poet's patienceAnd scholiastic passion blent:Dove-droppings on your monument.

427. RAIN{*}

How mobile is the bed on thesenights of gesticulating trees    when the rain clatters fast,the tin-toy rain with dapper hooftrotting upon an endless roof,    traveling into the past.

Upon old roads the steeds of rainSlip and slow down and speed again    through many a tangled year;but they can never reach the lastdip at the bottom of the past    because the sun is there.

428. THE BALLAD OF LONGWOOD GLEN{*}

That Sunday morning, at half past ten,Two cars crossed the creek and entered the glen.

In the first was Art Longwood, a local florist,With his children and wife (now Mrs. Deforest).

In the one that followed, a ranger sawArt's father, stepfather and father-in-law.

The three old men walked off to the cove.Through tinkling weeds Art slowly drove.

Fair was the morning, with bright clouds afar.Children and comics emerged from the car.

Silent Art, who could state at a thing all day,Watched a bug climb a stalk and fly away.

Pauline had asthma, Paul used a crutch.They were cute little rascals but could not run much.

«I wish», said his mother to crippled Paul,«Some man would teach you to pitch that ball».

Silent Art took the ball and tossed it high.It stuck in a tree that was passing by.

And the grave green pilgrim turned and stopped.The children waited, but no ball dropped.

«I never climbed trees in my timid prime»,Thought Art; and forthwith started to climb.

Now and then his elbow or knee could be seenIn a jigsaw puzzle of blue and green.

Up and up Art Longwood swarmed and shinned,And the leaves said yes to the questioning wind.

What tiaras of gardens! What torrents of light!How accessible ether! How easy flight!

His family circled the tree all day.Pauline concluded: «Dad climbed away».

None saw the delirious celestial crowdsGreet the hero from earth in the snow of the clouds.

Mrs. Longwood was getting a little concerned.He never came down. He never returned.

She found some change at the foot of the tree.The children grew bored. Paul was stung by a bee.

The old men walked over and stood looking up,Each holding five cards and a paper cup.

Cars on the highway stopped, backed, and thenUp a rutted road waddled into the glen.

And the tree was suddenly full of noise,Conventioners, fishermen, freckled boys.

Anacondas and pumas were mentioned by some,And all kinds of humans continued to come:

Tree surgeons, detectives, the fire brigade.An ambulance parked in the dancing shade.

A drunken rogue with a rope and a gunArrived on the scene to see justice done.

Explorers, dendrologists — all were there;And a strange pale girl with gypsy hair.

And from Cape Fear to Cape FlatteryEvery paper had: Man Lost in Tree.

And the sky-bound oak (where owls had perchedAnd the moon dripped gold) was felled and searched.

They discovered some inchworms, a red-cheeked gall,And an ancient nest with a new-laid ball.

They varnished the stump, put up railings and signs.Restrooms nestled in roses and vines.

Mrs. Longwood, retouched, when the children died,Became a photographer's dreamy bride.

And now the Deforests, with four old men,Like regular tourists visit the glen;

Munch their lunches, look up and down,Wash their hands, and drive back to town.

СТИХОТВОРЕНИЯ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ, НЕ ВОШЕДШИЕ В ПРИЖИЗНЕННЫЕ СБОРНИКИ

429. REMEMBRANCE{*}

Like silent ships we two in darkness met,   And when some day the poet's careless fame   Shall breathe to you a half-forgotten name —Soul of my song, I want you to regret.For you had Love. Out of my life you tore   One shining page. I want, if we must part,   Remembrance pale to quiver in your heartLike moonlit foam upon a windy shore.

430. HOME{*}

Music of windy woods, an endless songRippling in gleaming glades of Long Ago,You follow me on tiptoe, swift and slow,Through many a dreary year.... Ah, it was wrongTo wound those gentle trees! I dream and roamO'er sun-tormented plains, from brook to brook,And thence by stone grey thundering cities. Home,My home magnificent is but a wordOn a withered page in an old, dusty book.Oh, wistful birch trees! I remember daysOf beauty: ferns; a green and golden mare;A toadstool like a giant lady bird;A fairy path; bells, tinkling bells, and sighs;Whimsical orioles; white-rimmed butterfliesFanning their velvet wings on velvet silver stems....All is dead. Who cares, who understands?Not even God.... I saw mysterious landsAnd sailed to nowhere with blue-winged wavesWhirling around me. I have roved and ravedIn southern harbours among drunken knaves,And passed by narrow streets, scented and pavedWith moonlight pale. There have I called and kissedVeiled women swaying in a rhythmic mist,But lonesome was my soul, and cold the night....And if sometimes, when in the fading lightChance friends would chatter, suddenly I grewRestless and then quite still, — Ah, it wasMusic of you, windy woods!

431. THE RUSSIAN SONG{*}

I dream of simple tender things:a moonlit road and tinkling bells.Ah, drearly the coachboy sings,but sadness into beauty swells;

swells, and is lost in moonlight dim…the singer sighs, and then the moonfull gently passes back to himthe quivering, unfinished tune.

In distant lands, on hill and plain,thus do I dream, when nights are long, —and memory gives back againthe whisper of that long-lost song.

432. SOFTEST OF TONGUES{*}

To many things I've said the word that cheatsthe lips and leaves them parted (thus: prash-chaiwhich means «good-bye») — to furnished flats, to streets,to milk-white letters melting in the sky;to drab designs that habit seldom sees,to novels interrupted by the dinof tunnels, annotated by quick trees,abandoned with a squashed banana skin;to a dim waiter in a dimmer town,to cuts that healed and to a thumbless glove;also to things of lyrical renownperhaps more universal, such as love.Thus life has been an endless line of landreceding endlessly.... And so that's that,you say under your breath, and wave your hand,and then your handkerchief, and then your hat.To all these things I've said the fatal word,using a tongue I had so tuned and tamedthat — like some ancient sonneteer — I heardits echoes by posterity acclaimed.But now thou too must go; just here we part,softest of tongues, my true one, all my own....And I am left to grope for heart and artand start anew with clumsy tools of stone.

433. EXILE{*}

He happens to be a French poet, that thin,book-carrying man with a bristly gray chin;        you meet him wherever you goacross the bright campus, past ivy-clad walls.The wind which is driving him mad (this recalls        a rather good line in Hugo),keeps making blue holes in the waterproof glossof college-bred poplars that rustle and toss        their slippery shadows at piedyoung beauties, all legs, as they bicycle throughhis shoulder, his armpit, his heart, and the two        big books that are hurting his side.

Verlaine had been also a teacher. Somewherein England. And what about great Baudelaire,        alone in his Belgian hell?This ivy resembles the eyes of the deaf.Come, leaf, name a country beginning with «f»;        for instance, «forget» or «farewell».Thus dimly he muses and dreamily heedshis eavesdropping self as his body recedes,        dissolving in sun-shattered shade.L'Envoi: Those poor chairs in the Bois, one of whichlegs up, stuck half-drowned in the slime of a ditch        while others were grouped in a glade.

434. A POEM{*}