Альфред Теннисон - Поэтический мир прерафаэлитов

Головку эту я бы написал
На теплом фоне бледно-золотистом,
Тосканском, — высветлив щеки овал,
А губ рисунок безупречно чистым
Оставил бы — и никаких теней,
Лишь рот слегка разомкнут: не для смеха,
Что портит профиль, но как будто к ней
Медовый гиацинт, ее утеха,
Свои тугие тянет бубенцы,
Что тычутся ей в губы, как птенцы.
Вот шеи стебелек в охват ладони —
Как он на палевом сиял бы фоне! —
Вот подбородка совершенный плод…
Корреджо заполнял церковный свод
Сплошь ангелами в облачных провалах
И отблесках горящих, нежно-алых;
Смешались нимбы, воздух напряжен:
Какая огненная колесница
Сейчас пред ними вспыхнет и затмится?
О, этот тусклый золотистый тон,
Под стать ее головке, — он оттуда!
И глаз раскрыт: сморгнешь — упустишь чудо.

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, —
‘Guess now who holds thee?’ — ‘Death,’ I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang, — ‘Not Death, but Love.’

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
The chrism is on thine head, — on mine, the dew, —
And Death must dig the level where these agree.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
‘I love her for her smile — her look — her way
Of speaking gently — for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’ —
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, — and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry, —
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.