Вэчел Линдсей: Стиотворения и поэмы

[N. Vachel Lindsay, 1879—1931] — северо-американский поэт. Вырос в семье врача. Готовился стать искусствоведом. Не находя издателей для своих произведений, становится поэтом-бродягой. По всей стране Л. проповедует евангелие красоты, поет песни и "проповеди" (orations), вовлекая в массовое действо толпу слушателей. Л. возвел искусство в религию, долженствующую усовершенствовать общество. Наряду с утопиями будущего царства красоты он не менее рьяно воспевал также пророка мелкой буржуазии в ее борьбе с плутократией — вождя демократов Брайена ("Bryan, Bryan, Brayn, Brayn"). Как и Брайен, поэт видит спасение Америки в возрождении мелких городков земледельческого Mid West’a. Линдсей создал свой синкопический "напевный стих", снабженный указаниями для исполнителя, рассчитанный не на чтение про себя, а на многочисленную аудиторию. Несмотря на личный успех поэта-исполнителя, его стихотворения не нашли однако отклика в широких массах.

THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE

A Song in Chinese Tapestries

Dedicated to S.T.F.

“How, how,” he said. “Friend Chang,” I said,

“San Francisco sleeps as the dead –

Ended license, lust and play:

Why do you iron the night away?

Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,

With a tick and a wail till down comes round.

While the monster shadows glower and creep,

What can be better for men than sleep?”

“I will tell you a secret,” Chang replied;

“My breast with vision in satisfied,

And I see green trees and fluttering wings,

And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings.”

Then he lit fire-crackers, “cra-cra-crack!”

He lit a joss-stick long and black.

Then the proud gray joss in the corner stirred;

On his wrist appeared a gray small bird,

And this was the song of the gray small bird:

“Where is the princess, loved forever,

Who made Chang first of the kings of men?”

And the joss in the corner stirred again;

And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awake,

Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke.

It pilled in a maze round the ironing-place,

And there on the snowy table wide

Stood a Chinese lady of high degree,

With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face…

Yet she put away all form and pride,

And laid her glimmering veil aside

With a childlike smile for Chang and for me.

The walls fell back, night was aflower,

The table gleamed in a moonlit bower,

While Chang, with a countenance carved of stone,

Ironed and ironed, all alone.

And thus she sang to the busy man Chang:

“Have you forgotten…

Deep in the ages, long, long ago,

I was your sweetheart, there on the sand –

Storm-worn beach of the Chinese land?

We sold our grain in the peacock town

Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown –

Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown…

When all the world was drinking blood

From the skulls of men and bulls,

And all the world had swords and clubs of stone,

We drank our tea in China

beneath the sacred spicetrees,

And heard the curled waves of the harbour moan.

And this gray bird, in Love’s first spring,

With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing,

Captured the world with his carolling:

Do you remember, ages after,

At last the world we were born to own?

You were the heir of the yellow throne –

The world was the field of the Chinese man

And we were the pride of the sons of Han.

We copied deep books, and we carved in jade,

And wave white silks in the mulberry shade…”.

“I remember, I remember

That Spring came on forever,

That Spring came on forever,”

Said the Chinese nightingale.

My heart was filled with marvel and dream,

Though I saw the western street-lamps gleam,

Though dawn was bringing the western day,

Though Chang was

a laundryman ironing away…

Mingled there with the streets and alleys,

The railroad-yard, and the clock-tower bright,

Demon-clouds crossed ancient valleys:

Across wide lotus-ponds of light

I marked a giant firefly’s flight.

And the lady, rosy-red,

Open her fan, closed her fan,

Stretched her hand toward Chang, and said:

“Do you remember,

Ages after,

Our palace of heart-red stone?

Do you remember

The little doll-faced children

With their lanterns full of moon-fire,

That came from all the empire

Honoring the throne? –

The loveliest fete and carnival

Our world had ever known?

The sages sat about us

With their heads bowed in their beards,

With proper meditation on the sight.

Confucius later said we lived aright…

And this gray bird, on that day of spring,

With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing,

Captured the world with his carolling.

Late at night his tune was spent.

Peasants,

Sages,

Children,

Homeward went,

And then the bronze bird sang for you and me.

We walked alone,

our hearts were high and free.

I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name,

I had a silvery name – do you remember

The name you cried beside the tumbling sea?”

Chang turned not to the lady slim -

He went to his work, ironing away;

But she was arch and knowing and glowing.

And the bird on his shoulder spoke for him.

“Darling… darling… darling… darling…”

Said the Chinese nightingale.

…………………………………………….

The great gray joss on a rustic shelf,

Rakish and shrewd, with his collar away,

Sang impolitely, as though by himself,

Drowning with his bellowing the nightingale’s cry:

“Back through a hundred,hundred years

Hear the waves as they climb the piers,

Hear the howl of the silver seas,

Hear the thunder!

Hear the gongs of holy China

How the waves and tunes combine

In a rhythmic clashing wonder,

Incantation old and fine:

«Dragons,dragons,Chinese dragons;

Red fire-crackers, and green fire-crackers,

And dragons,dragons,Chinese dragons».”

Then the lady, rosy-red,

Turned to her lover Chang and said:

“Dare you forget that turquoise dawn

When we stood in our mist-hung velvet lawn,

And worked a spell this great joss taught

Till a God of the Dragons was charmed and caught?

From the flag high over our palace-home

He knew to our feet in rainbow-foam –

A king of beauty and tempest and thunder

Panting to tear our sorrows asunder,

A dragon of fair adventure and wonder.

We mounted the back of that royal slave

With thoughts of desire that were noble and grave.

We swam down the shore to the dragon-mountains,

We whirled to the peaks and the fiery fountains.

To our secret ivory house we were borne.

We looked down the wonderful wing – filled regions

Where the dragons darted in glimmering legions.

Right by my breast the nightingale sang;