Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,

Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,

Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions

Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,

Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures",

Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.

The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.

With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,

I cannot write - I cannot speak or think,

Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling,

This standing motionless upon the golden

Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,

Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,

And thrilling as I see upon the right,

Upon the left, and all the way along

Amid empurpled vapors, far away

To where the prospect terminates - thee only.

[1847]

35. * * *

Недавно тот, кто пишет эти строки,

Пред разумом безумно преклоняясь,

Провозглашал идею "силы слов"

Он отрицал, раз навсегда, возможность,

Чтоб в разуме людском возникла мысль

Вне выраженья языка людского:

И вот, как бы смеясь над похвальбой,

Два слова - чужеземных - полногласных,

Два слова итальянские, из звуков

Таких, что только ангелам шептать их,

Когда они загрезят под луной,

"Среди росы, висящей над холмами

Гермонскими, как цепь из жемчугов",

В его глубоком сердце пробудили

Как бы еще немысленные мысли,

Что существуют лишь как души мыслей,

Богаче, о, богаче, и страннее,

Безумней тех видений, что могли

Надеяться возникнуть в изъясненьи

На арфе серафима Израфеля

("Что меж созданий Бога так певуч").

А я! Мне изменили заклинанья.

Перо бессильно падает из рук.

С твоим прекрасным именем, как с мыслью,

Тобой мне данной, - не могу писать,

Ни чувствовать - увы - не чувство это.

Недвижно так стою на золотом

Пороге, перед замком сновидений,

Раскрытым широко, - глядя в смущеньи

На пышность раскрывающейся дали,

И с трепетом встречая, вправо, влево,

И вдоль всего далекого пути,

Среди туманов, пурпуром согретых,

До самого конца - одну тебя.

(1901)

Перевод К. Бальмонта

36. ULALUME - A BALLAD

The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crisped and sere

The leaves they were withering and sere:

It was night, in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year:

It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,

In the misty mid region of Weir:

It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,

Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul

Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

These were days when my heart was volcanic

As the scoriae rivers that roll

As the lavas that restlessly roll

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek,

In the ultimate climes of the Pole

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek,

In the realms of the Boreal Pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,

But our thoughts they were palsied and sere

Our memories were treacherous and sere;

For we knew not the month was October,

And we marked not the night of the year

(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)

We noted not the dim lake of Auber,

(Though once we had journeyed down here)

We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,

Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent,

And star-dials pointed to morn

As the star-dials hinted of morn

At the end of our path a liquescent

And nebulous lustre was born,

Out of which a miraculous crescent

Arose with a duplicate horn

Astarte's bediamonded crescent,

Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said - "She is warmer than Dian;

She rolls through an ether of sighs

She revels in a region of sighs.

She has seen that the tears are not dry on