(Апрель 1932)
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN ANCIENT MARINER
I met with a ancient scribelleer
As I scoured the pirates' sea
His sailes were alullt at nought coma null
Not raise the wind could he.
The bann of Bull, the sign of Sam
Burned crimson on his brow.
And I rocked at the rig of his bricabrac brig
With K.O. 11 on his prow
Shakefears & Coy danced poor old joy
And some of their steps were corkers
As they shook the last shekels like phantom freckels
His pearls that had poisom porkers
The gnome Norbert read rich bills of fare
The ghosts of his deep debauches
But there was no bibber to slip that scribber
The price of a box of matches
For all cried, Schuft! He has lost the Luft
That made his U. boat go
And what a weird leer wore that scribelleer
As his wan eye winked with woe.
He dreamed of the goldest sands uprolled
By the silviest Beach of Beaches
And to watch it dwindle gave him Kugelkopfschwindel
Till his eyeboules bust their stitches
His hold shipped seas with a drunkard's ease
And its deadweight grew and grew
While the witless wag still waived his flag
Jemmyrend's white and partir's blue.
His tongue stuck out with a dragon's drouth
For a sluice of schweppes and brandy
And but for the glows on his roseate nose
You'd have staked your goat he was Ghandi.
For the Yanks and Japs had made off with his traps!
So that stripped to the stern he clung
While, increase of a cross, an Albatross
Abaft his nape was hung.
(October 1932)
ПОРТРЕТ ХУДОЖНИКА КАК СТАРОГО МОРЕХОДА
Я долго плавал в пиратских морях,
Знавал и шторм и грозу.
И мне повстречался старый мудряк
С повязкой на левом глазу.
Его заклеймил Папаша Буль
И Дядюшка Сэм отверг.
Одиннадцатый год его солнце жжет
И звезд слепит фейерверк.
Ко-Ко и Пшикспир зовут на пир,
Брачные бубны гремят,
И мечут перлы скитальцы эрлы
Под ноги поросят.
Но чертов старик прыг на свой бриг,
Как сверчок на насест!
Плевать, если нет в кармане монет,
Чтоб уплатить за проезд.
Пускай лилипуты кричат: Капут!
Хватай негодяя! Пора
Как можно скорее вздернуть на рею
Этих пиратов пера!
Но Водиссей лишь ухо заткнет,
Припоминая с тоской
Лесок и Песок и голосок
Дальней сильвены морской.
А бриг выделывал кренделя
Под флагом бел-голубым,
И чем выше флаг, тем больше фляг
Разгружалось под ним.
От жажды вываливая язык,
Твердя лишь один глагол,
Он стал тощее любых мощей
И, как Махатма, гол.
Ибо янки и япы, алчные лапы,
Его раздели всерьез,
И вместо рубашки на нем, бедняжке,
Нелепый повис «Альбатрос».
(Октябрь 1932)
EPILOGUE TO IBSEN'S GHOSTS
Dear quick, whose conscience buried deep
The grim old grouser has been salving,
Permit one spectre more to peep.
I am the ghost of Captain Alving.
Silenced and smothered by my past
Like the lewd knight in dirty linen
I struggle forth to swell the cast
And air a long suppressed opinion.
For muddling weddings into wakes
No fool could vie with Parson Manders.
I, though a dab at ducks and drakes,
Let gooseys serve or sauce their ganders.
My spouse bore me a blighted boy,
Our slavey pupped a bouncing bitch.
Paternity, thy name is joy
When the wise child knows which is which.
Both swear I am that selfsame man
By whom their infants were begotten.
Explain, fate, if you care and can
Why one is sound and one is rotten.
Olaf may plod his stony path
And live as chastely as Susanna
Yet pick up in some Turkish bath
His quantum sat of Pox Romana.
While Haakon hikes up primrose way,
Spreeing and gleeing as he goes,
To smirk upon his latter day
Without a pimple on his nose.
I gave it up I am afraid
But if I loafed and found it fun
Remember how a coyclad maid
Knows how to take it out of one.
The more I dither on and drink
My midnight bowl of spirit punch
The firmlier I feel and think
Friend Manders came too oft to lunch.
Since scuttling ship Vikings like me
Reck not to whom the blame is laid,
Y.M.C.A., V.D., T.B.
Or Harbormaster of Port Said.
Blame all and none and take to task
The harlot's lure, the swain's desire.
Heal by all means but hardly ask
Did this man sin or did his sire.
The shack's ablaze. That canting scamp,
The carpenter, has dished the parson.
Now had they kept their powder damp
Like me there would have been no arson.
Nay more, were I not all I was,
Weak, wanton, waster out and out,
There would have been no world's applause
And damn all to write home about.
(April 1934)
Эпилог К «ПРИВИДЕНИЯМ» ИБСЕНА
От вас, любезные друзья,
К которым в глуби подсознанья
Спускался старый Ибсен, — я,
Тень Альвинга, прошу вниманья.
Мне затыкали глотку, но,
Став жертвой злобного навета,
Свой взгляд на драму всё равно
Я изложу в обход запрета.
Пускай не всякий остолоп
Отыщет к драме ключ. Однако
Кой-что и я, хотя не поп,
Кумекаю в вопросах брака.
Жена мне родила мальца,
Служанка — дочку. Очень кстати
Знать для счастливого отца
Породу своего дитяти.
Судьба, поведай мне теперь,
Какая есть на то причина,
Что крепкую послал мне дщерь
Господь и немощного сына.
Взять Олафа: он честно жил
И был безгрешен, как Сусанна,
Но в бане как-то подцепил
Свой quantum est [4] Так в тексте. В оригинале Джойса было quantum sat, в примечаниях Г. Кружков никак не комментирует это изменение. Прим. автора fb2
от Pox Romana.
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