Вэчел Линдсей - Стиотворения и поэмы

Я видел гордую загадочную киску,

Я видел гордую загадочную киску,

Ей гордость не даёт ловить ни мышку и ни крыску, -

Мяу, мяу, мяу.

И ест она, урча-мурча, кошачью мяту,

И ест она, урча-мурча, кошачью мяту,

Но рыбок золотых сожрёт хоть полтораста кряду, -

Мяу, мяу, мяу.

Я видел кошку, но во сне всё это было,

Я видел кошку, но во сне всё это было, -

Служанку, что несла ей сливки, кошка та дразнила, -

Мяу, мяу, мяу.

Пока служанка не оделась – вся по моде,

Пока служанка не оделась – вся по моде,

И кошке кланялась при всём честном народе, -

Мяу, мяу, мяу.

Слыхали вы о чём-нибудь таком – ну хоть немножко?

Слыхали вы о чём-нибудь таком – ну хоть немножко?

Слыхали вы о чём-нибудь таком – ну хоть немножко?

Вот чудо – гордая загадочная кошка.

Вот чудо – гордая загадочная кошка.

Вот чудо – гордая загадочная кошка.

Мяу… мяу… мяу.

WHAT THE COAL-HEAVER SAID

The moon's an open furnace door

Where all can see the blast,

We shovel in our blackest griefs,

Upon that grate are cast

Our aching burdens, loves and fears

And underneath them wait

Paper and tar and pitch and pine

Called strife and blood and hate.

Out of it all there comes a flame,

A splendid widening light.

Sorrow is turned to mystery

And Death into delight.

ЧТО СКАЗАЛ КОЧЕГАР(перевод И.Кашкина)

Луна - это дверца топки,

Разинувшей свою пасть.

Мы шуруем в её глотке

Чёрный уголь бед и напастей.

Полной надеждой швыряем: страх,

Надежду, страданье, любовь,

А растопку туда подкинет враг:

Борьбу, ненависть, кровь.

И разгорится ревущий огонь

И дохнёт, лицо опаляя,

И забудешь горе, смотря на огонь,

И смерть не страшна такая.

THE FLOWER-FED BUFFALOES

The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring

In the days of long ago,

Ranged where the locomotives sing

And the prarie flowers lie low:

The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass

Is swept away by wheat,

Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by

In the spring that still is sweet.

But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring

Left us long ago,

They gore no more, they bellow no more:--

With the Blackfeet lying low,

With the Pawnee lying low.

ВСКОРМЛЕННЫЕ ЦВЕТАМИ БИЗОНЫ(перевод А.Сергеева)

Вскормленные цветами бизоны

Давно миновавших лет

Мчались там, где грохочут вагоны

И цветов на прерии нет,

Там, где метались душистые травы,

Пшеница стоит стеной,

Поют свистками составы, составы

Сладкой доселе весной.

Вскормленные цветами бизоны

Давно миновавших лет

Отревели свое, отбодали свое,

Отрыскали по холмам свое,

И индейцев-поуни нет,

И черноногих нет.

THE GHOSTS OF THE BUFFALOES

Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry,

The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high,

The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar,

White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar.

I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone.

My home was a hut without orchard or lawn.

It was mud-smear and logs near a whispering stream,

Nothing else built by man could I see in my dream...

Then...

Ghost-kings came headlong, row upon row,

Gods of the Indians, torches aglow.

They mounted the bear and the elk and the deer,

And eagles gigantic, aged and sere,

They rode long-horn cattle, they cried "A-la-la."

They lifted the knife, the bow, and the spear,

They lifted ghost-torches from dead fires below,

The midnight made grand with the cry "A-la-la."

The midnight made grand with a red-god charge,

A red-god show,

A red-god show,

"A-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la."

With bodies like bronze, and terrible eyes

Came the rank and the file, with catamount cries,

Gibbering, yipping, with hollow-skull clacks,

Riding white bronchos with skeleton backs,

Scalp-hunters, beaded and spangled and bad,

Naked and lustful and foaming and mad,

Flashing primeval demoniac scorn,

Blood-thirst and pomp amid darkness reborn,

Power and glory that sleep in the grass

While the winds and the snows and the great rains pass.

They crossed the gray river, thousands abreast,

They rode in infinite lines to the west,

Tide upon tide of strange fury and foam,

Spirits and wraiths, the blue was their home,

The sky was their goal where the star-flags are furled,

And on past those far golden splendors they whirled.

They burned to dim meteors, lost in the deep.

And I turned in dazed wonder, thinking of sleep.

And the wind crept by

Alone, unkempt, unsatisfied,

The wind cried and cried —

Muttered of massacres long past,

Buffaloes in shambles vast...

An owl said: "Hark, what is a-wing?"

I heard a cricket carolling,

I heard a cricket carolling,

I heard a cricket carolling.

Then...

Snuffing the lightning that crashed from on high

Rose royal old buffaloes, row upon row.

The lords of the prairie came galloping by.

And I cried in my heart "A-la-la, a-la-la,

A red-god show,

A red-god show,

A-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la."

Buffaloes, buffaloes, thousands abreast,

A scourge and amazement, they swept to the west.

With black bobbing noses, with red rolling tongues,

Coughing forth steam from their leather-wrapped lungs,

Cows with their calves, bulls big and vain,

Goring the laggards, shaking the mane,

Stamping flint feet, flashing moon eyes,

Pompous and owlish, shaggy and wise.

Like sea-cliffs and caves resounded their ranks

With shoulders like waves, and undulant flanks.

Tide upon tide of strange fury and foam,

Spirits and wraiths, the blue was their home,

The sky was their goal where the star-flags are furled,

And on past those far golden splendors they whirled.

They burned to dim meteors, lost in the deep,

And I turned in dazed wonder, thinking of sleep.

I heard a cricket's cymbals play,

A scarecrow lightly flapped his rags,

And a pan that hung by his shoulder rang,

Rattled and thumped in a listless way,

And now the wind in the chimney sang,

The wind in the chimney,

The wind in the chimney,

The wind in the chimney,

Seemed to say: —