Йейтс Уильям Батлер
«Стихи. (В переводах разных авторов)»

I hardly hear the curlew cry,

Nor the grey rush when the wind is high,

Before my thoughts begin to run

On the heir of Uladh, Buan's son,

Baile, who had the honey mouth;

And that mild woman of the south,

Aillinn, who was King Lugaidh's heir.

Their love was never drowned in care

Of this or that thing, nor grew cold

Because their bodies had grown old.

Being forbid to marry on earth,

They blossomed to immortal mirth.

About the time when Christ was born,

When the long wars for the White Horn

And the Brown Bull had not yet come,

Young Baile Honey Mouth, whom some

Called rather Baile Little-Land,

Rode out of Emain with a band

Of harpers and young men; and they

Imagined, as they struck the way

To many-pastured Muirthemne,

That all things fell out happily,

And there, for all that fools had said,

Baile and Aillinn would be wed.

They found an old man running there:

He had ragged long grass-coloured hair;

He had knees that stuck out of his hose;

He had puddle-water in his shoes;

He had half a cloak to keep him dry,

Although he had a squirrel's eye.

O wandering birds and rushy beds,

You put such folly in our heads

With all this crying in the wind,

No common love is to our mind,

And our poor Kate or Nan is less

Than any whose unhappiness

Awoke the harp-strings long ago.

Yet they that know all things but know

That all this life can give us is

A child's laughter, a woman's kiss.

Who was it put so great a scorn

In the grey reeds that night and morn

Are trodden and broken hy the herds,

And in the light