Оден Уистан Хью
«Стихи»

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us: your gift survived it all;

The parich of rich women, physical decay,

Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its saying where executives

Would never want to tamper; it flows south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest;

William Yeats is laid to rest:

Let the Irish vessel lie

Emptied of its poetry.

Time that is intolerant,

Of the brave and innocent,

And indifferent in a week

To a beautiful physique,

Worships language and forgives

Everyone by whome it lives;

Pardons cowardice, conceit,

Lays its honours at their feet.

Time that with this strange excuse

Pardoned Kipling and his views,

And will pardon Paul Claudel,

Pardons him for writing well.

In the nightmare of the dark

All the dogs of Europe bark,

And the living nations wait,

Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace

Stares from every human face,

And the seas of pity lie

Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right

To the bottom of the night,

With your unconstraining voice

Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,

Sing of human unsuccess

In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.

February 1939

ПАМЯТИ У. Б. ЙЕЙТСА

(умершего в январе 1939 года)

I

Он растворился в смерти, как в зиме,

Замерз ручей, пусты аэропорты,

Неразличимы были