"Lyric Ballads" by Wordsworth. Lyric ballads Preface to the collection of lyric ballads

March 04 2011

Wordsworth was born in a small town located in County Camberland. Wordsworth's father was a lawyer. After graduating from the Hawksheed School of Drama, he entered Cambridge. The university immediately attracted the attention of teachers for outstanding abilities in the field of science. After the first exam session, he topped the list of the best students. Wordsworth's successes in mathematics were especially significant. But the prospect of completely surrendering to academic science, obviously, did not appeal to him. Soon he began to devote all his free time to the study of literature at the expense of other subjects.

In 1790 Wordsworth decided to take a trip to Europe. His stay in France was especially long. The ideas of the French Revolution had a significant impact on him during this period. Here in France, he met Annette Vallon, the daughter of a surgeon from Blois, with whom he fell in love and who bore him a daughter. V. learned about the birth of his daughter, while already in England. In 1793 he published two poems "An Evening Walk" and "Descriptive Sketches", where he tried to express his impressions of the trip. In the same year Wordsworth wrote a "Letter to Bishop Landaff" in defense of the French Revolution, which remained unpublished during the poet's lifetime. In 1795 Wordsworth received a small inheritance after the death of one of his friends. This money allowed him to fully devote himself to literary creativity. Together with his sister Dorothy, a devoted friend and assistant of the poet throughout his life, he stayed at Racedown. In the same year Wordsworth met S. T. Coleridge and soon moved to live in Olfoxden in order to be closer to his new comrade. The result of the friendship of the two poets was the appearance of the collection "Lyrical Ballads" ("Lyrical Ballads", the first edition of which appeared in 1798 in Bristol, and the second, significantly expanded, in 1800)

Coldridge later spoke of the conception of the book in A Literary Biography (1817): “In the first year when we became neighbors with Mr. Wordsworth, our conversations often touched two cardinal points of poetry, its ability to awaken the sympathy of the reader by matching its interesting fickle colors of imagination ... This idea gave birth to "Lyric Ballads", in which, as agreed, I had to direct my efforts to images and characters of the supernatural, or at least romantic ... Mr. Wordsworth, for his part, set the goal of providing a note of novelty to everyday life and awaken feelings similar to the perception of the supernatural, awakening consciousness from the lethargy of everyday life and directing it to the perception of the beauty and mystery of the world ... ". According to the original plan, both poets were supposed to write approximately the same number of poems for the collection, but it so happened that it was composed mainly of the works of Wordsworth.

"Lyrical ballads" became an important milestone in the development of English literature, often literary historians from this work begin the countdown of the romantic period in English culture. Both Wordsworth and Coleridge were well aware of the pioneering nature of this book, which is to some extent related to the fact that Lyric Ballads were published anonymously. The authors did not want the poems from the new collection to be somehow associated in the mind of the reader with their earlier and more traditional works. To show the essence of a creative experiment and substantiate its legitimacy, Wordsworth tried in the "Preface to" Lyric Ballads ".

The novelty of the poetry collection, according to Wordsworth, lies in the appeal to new topics and the use of a new language. Unlike contemporary authors, focused on the poetry of classicism, Wordsworth is not attracted by sublime and significant subjects: "... the main task of these poems was to select cases and situations from Everyday life and retell or describe them, constantly using, as far as possible, everyday ... We chose, first of all, scenes from simple rural life, because in these conditions, natural emotional impulses find a favorable basis for maturation, are subject to less restriction and are narrated in a simpler and more expressive language ; because under these conditions our simplest feelings are manifested with greater clarity and, accordingly, can be more accurately studied and more vividly reproduced ... "V. believes that" between the language of prose and the language of poetry there is and cannot be a significant difference "and therefore does not need any it is a "special" language, as the creators of the previous era believed. Likewise, there can be no "special" poetic themes. Poetry borrows its themes from life, it turns to those subjects that excite a person and find a response in her heart. And for Wordsworth, he is not a schema-monk who retires in an ivory tower, but "who talks to people."

However, Wordsworth does not believe that poetry is available to everyone. There are many ideas expressed by Wordsworth in the "Preface to" Lyric Ballads "- about the need for a poet to perceive the everyday and ordinary as something amazing and sublime, about imagination, about the relationship between feeling and mind in poetry, etc. give reason to consider the "Preface ..." the first manifesto of romanticism in English.

In his poems, which were included in the collection "Lyric Ballads", Wordsworth tried to adhere to the principles that he personally expressed in the "Preface ..." to the book. Most of them are devoted to the life of peasants or other representatives of the lower strata. The poetic language is clear, most of the words are borrowed from everyday vocabulary, the poet avoids using unusual comparisons or very complex metaphors.

Children are the heroes in several verses. So, in the poem "We Are Seven" he tells about a meeting with a peasant girl:

No, like children: the world is not the world -
They already twist and twist ...
Well, how since those stupid years
Do they understand death? ..
And how many are you? Answer me now;
There are two in the sky ... Right?
There are only five of them ... No, sir, no.
There are seven of us. - And how is this, how?
Already two are no longer among the living,
God has a place for them. -
She can't hear my words,
One says: - We are all seven,
There are seven of us, seven of us, seven of us!
(Translated by G. Grabowski)

Wordsworth later claimed that such a meeting took place with him in real life... When asked how many children there are in the family, the girl answered: "There are seven of us." When the author learned that two children - a brother and a sister - had died and were buried in the local cemetery, he tried to convince the girl that she was wrong, but she kept repeating, "There are seven of us." The verse does not contain any deep philosophical truths, and the poet does not try to convince the reader that a child's view of the world is inherent in some kind of mysticism laid down by nature itself; he simply shows a child, in whose consciousness there is still no such thing as death. And this feature of the child's consciousness only emphasizes pessimism, fear of the world of an adult, in whose consciousness the category of death becomes one of the central ones.

Another of the Lyric Ballads, The Idiot Boy, became well known in large part due to the criticism with which he was attacked by the poet's contemporaries. Many readers were shocked by the very idea - to make lyrical hero a mentally handicapped boy. The dominant idea was that the portrayal of mentally disabled people in literature can only evoke a feeling of disgust in the reader, therefore this was considered unaesthetic. True, Wordsworth himself had no intention of shocking the tastes of the readership. Crazy heroes also appear in other poems in the collection ("The Thorn" - "The Thorn", "The Mad Mother" - "The Mad Mother").

The destructive influence of civilization on the peaceful, patriarchal life of peasants became the theme of such poems as "Michael" ("Michael"), "Brothers" ("The Brothers"), "Dreams of poor Susan" ("The Reverie of Poor Susan"), etc. ...

The second edition of Lyric Ballads (1800) was supplemented by the inclusion of new verses, mainly Wordsworth's. If the first edition was dominated by poems created in the genre of ballads, then in the second, the number of poetic works with a more pronounced lyricism was noticeably increasing. True, in the collection of Coleridge and Wordsworth it is very difficult to distinguish between ballads and lyric poetry proper. The essence of the poetic experiment of the two authors was to embody the features of each genre into one whole. They tried, using a simple four-row stanza of the ballad, to recreate the subtle and varied experiences of a person, to combine analysis with the movement of the plot. And yet, when comparing it, it can be seen that in the second edition the number of poems increased in which the author-storyteller gives way to an author who is more inclined to introspection, more attentive to the impulses of his own soul.

Coleridge and Wordsworth Lyrical Ballads - anonymous collection of poetry from 1798, "/>

Coleridge and Wordsworth

"Lyric Ballads" (Lyrical ballads) - an anonymous collection of poetry in 1798, which is one of the most important watersheds in the history of English poetry. The vast majority of poems were written W. Wordsworth, however, the collection opens with a long poem S. T. Coleridge"About the old sailor".

To finance a joint trip to Germany, young poets Coleridge and Wordsworth, who lived nearby in Somerset and spent a lot of time in each other's company, agreed to prepare and anonymously publish a collection of poetry that would reflect their views on literature. The name was due to the fact that, according to a preliminary agreement, Wordsworth was to write "lyrics" on themes from everyday life, and Coleridge - "ballads" on exotic subjects. By different reasons the latter did not complete the planned poems Kubla Khan and Christabel. Since the collection includes only four of his poems, the "lyric" (that is, Wordsworth) component in the book noticeably prevails over the "ballad", narrative.

The collection closes with Wordsworth's elegy, Tintern Abbey, written spontaneously just before publication, which eventually became a textbook. She went down in the history of English literature as "an example of a sensitive and thoughtful perception of nature, in which the landscape and lyrical emotions are intertwined into an inseparable whole."

The second, greatly expanded edition of 1800 included, among other things, poems written by Wordsworth in Germany about the mysterious Lucy. They were translated into Russian Georgy Ivanov and Samuel Marshak... If the first edition did not contain any indication of authorship, then the second edition went to press as a work of Wordsworth.

Meaning

Despite its high artistic merit, the book initially did not generate much resonance. The first print run did not sell very well, until the attention of the general public to the originality of Lyric Ballads was attracted by such popular journalists as Hazlitt, who met both authors during their work on the collection.

The popularity of "Lyric Ballads" in the early years of the 19th century actually buried English classicism and its poetic techniques. Coleridge and Wordsworth contrasted the ready-made poetic recipes with the spontaneity of feeling, the traditional "high calm" - the language of everyday communication. Like other representatives of English pre-romanticism, the authors profess the Rousseau cult of nature, but go further than their predecessors. The heroes of Wordsworth's poems are never sung in verse before, unimportant characters, such as the village idiot.

Literary controversy

The appeal to such mundane subjects in poetic form baffled the first reviewers of the collection. Find common denominator it was difficult for Wordsworth's rural elegies and the archaic meter of The Old Sailor. The authors of the literary review especially zealously took up arms against the daring youth Edinburgh Review, who ironically christened Wordsworth's circle "lake poets."

To clarify his intentions, Wordsworth sent a preface to the second edition of the collection, which is usually regarded as the manifesto of the Lake School. In the 1802 edition, this preface was supplemented with an essay on the language of poetry ( Poetic Diction). In these writings Wordsworth defines his task as follows:

Coleridge expounded his point of view on the poetic program of "Lyric Ballads" years later in the 14th chapter of the aesthetic treatise Biographia Literaria(1817). The poet claims that the goal of art is a kind of narrative magic, which he defines with the phrase "the reader's voluntary refusal of disbelief" ( suspension of disbelief), which became winged in the English-speaking world.

"Lake School". The group of romantics who made up the "lake school" include Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey. They are united not only by the fact that they lived in the north of England, in Camberland, at the edge of lakes (hence they are called "leukists", from lake - lake), but some common features their ideological and creative path. At the beginning of their creative activity, they are characterized by rebellious moods, they welcome the French bourgeois revolution, but later, disappointed in its results, they lose faith in an active struggle and go over to conservative positions. Being innovators in poetry (this applies to Wordsworth and Coleridge), they paved the way for romantic art in England in the early period of creativity. This is the progressive meaning of their work of the 80-90s, but later they increasingly turn to the ideas of passivity and humility.

A certain commonality of ideological and creative positions of the poets of the "lake school" does not mean the identity of views and talent. If Wordsworth and Coleridge were truly gifted and insightful in assessing the harmful consequences of their departure from the freedom-loving moods of their early period of creativity, then Southey's modest talent was combined with reactionaryism. In the 90s he created a number of accusatory works, wrote a drama about the peasant uprising "Wat Tyler" (Wat Tylor, a Dramatic Poem, 1794). But already in the drama "The Fall of Robespierre" (The Fall of Robespierre, 1795), written in collaboration with Coleridge, his departure from radical sentiments is revealed. In the late 90s, Southey wrote ballads on medieval themes, which expressed religious ideas and provided supernatural images and situations. Southey's evolution from rebellious sentiments to mysticism and religious humility was reflected in the poems: "Talaba the Destroyer" (Thalaba the Destroyer, 1801), "Madoc" (Madoc, 1805), "Curse of Kehama" (The Curse of Kehama, 1810). The content of the poem "The Vision of Judgment" (A Vision of Judgment, 1821) is reactionary.

In 1798, the anonymous publication “ Lyric ballads "(Lyrical Ballads) Wordsworth and Coleridge. Poets opposed any literary rules and sought to create a poetic "experiment" based on the principle of the natural depiction of human feelings and passions, everyday life.

Wordsworth's preface to the second edition of Lyric Ballads (1800) was a manifesto for English romanticism. The poet speaks of the need to choose the incidents of everyday life and portray them in the light of poetic imagination, which paints the ordinary in an unusual aspect.

The subject of poetry should be rural life, for in a simple and modest life, human passions, the life of the heart, are manifested with greater immediacy. In being ordinary people the life of passions merges with the beauty and permanence of nature. In poetry, it is necessary to reproduce the language of commoners. Far from the conventions of a civilized society, ordinary people express their feelings artlessly. Their language contains beauty and philosophical significance. Wordsworth wants to speak simply and naturally about human feelings, so he rejects the classicist method of personifying abstract ideas. He seeks to bring the language of poetry closer to the language of prose, believing that the language of good prose is quite suitable for poetry.

The Lyric Ballads recounts the plight of the rural laborers in England. The main dramatic theme of the poems is the collapse of the former foundations of the life of small farmers, the decomposition of patriarchal family relations, the miserable existence of disadvantaged people. The feelings and experiences of the peasants are truthfully revealed. "Pastoral" ballads depict the drama of the fate of the English peasantry under the influence of the new bourgeois relations associated with the industrial revolution. The poet contrasts rural life with urban life; he sees humanity only in the villagers and stubbornly removes himself from everything new that brings with it social development; the poet increasingly limits himself to attention to the "pastoral" past and to his subjective experiences.

Since the collection includes only four of his poems, the "lyric" (that is, Wordsworth) component in the book noticeably prevails over the "ballad", narrative.

Despite its high artistic merit, the book initially did not generate much resonance. The first print run did not sell very well, until the attention of the general public to the originality of Lyric Ballads was attracted by such popular journalists as Hazlitt, who met both authors during their work on the collection. The popularity of "Lyric Ballads" in the early years of the XIX century actually buried the English classicism of his poetic techniques. Coleridge and Wordsworth contrasted the ready-made poetic recipes with the spontaneity of feeling, the traditional "high calm" - the language of everyday communication. The heroes of Wordsworth's poems are never sung in verse before, unimportant characters, such as the village idiot.

S.T.COLRIDGE,
W.WORDSWORT

FROM "LYRIC BALLADS" (1798)

Translations are published by edition:
W. Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, Lyric Ballads and Other Poems, RGGU Publishing Center, 2011 (the book was fully translated by Igor Melamed).

"Lyrical ballads" by outstanding English poets of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, representatives of the so-called "lake school" of ST Coleridge and W. Wordsworth are one of the earliest monuments of European romanticism. The first edition of the ballads appeared in 1798, and over the next two centuries the book went through many reprints. The lack of a complete translation of "Lyric Ballads" was a very annoying gap in a number of Russian publications of the world classics. V Soviet time Wordsworth and Coleridge were considered "reactionary" romantics as opposed to "revolutionary" Byron and Shelley. The works of the poets of the Lakeside School could only be found in anthologies of English poetry. The first personal edition of Coleridge in Russian translations was published only in 1974 in the "Literary Monuments" series, and the first translated book of Wordsworth's selected lyrics was published only in 2001. in the publishing house "Rainbow".

I have made a complete translation of Lyric Ballads - from the original of their first edition in 1798. And this is important, since in later lifetime publications some of the works were seriously revised. I found it interesting and necessary to acquaint the reader with the famous initial version of the book, which made its authors famous.

Seven translations are published here:

1. BALLAD OF THE OLD SEAFARER (COLLIDGE)
2. NIGHTING (COLLEGE)
3. GOODIE BLAKE AND HARRY JILL (WORDSWORT)
4. US SEVEN (WORDSWORT)
5. TERNOVNIK (WORDSWORT)
6. CRAZY MOTHER (WORDSWORT)
7. IDIOT BOY (WORDSWORT)

THE BALLAD OF THE OLD SEAFARER

In seven parts

Summary

About how a ship that crossed the Equator was thrown by storms into a cold country near the South Pole, how from there it sailed to the tropical latitudes of the Great The Pacific, about the strange events that happened there, and how the Old Sailor returned to his homeland.

I
Gray-haired Sailor, stopped
He is a youth at the door.
“Old man, what do you want? Your gaze
Burns, instilling fear!

All the guests are assembled, waiting for me
Groom: I'm a brother to him.
And nowadays there is a feast up there,
Can you hear the noise! ​​"

"And there was a ship ..." - said the old man,
He kept all the guest.
“Well, Sailor, come with me,
If your story is ridiculous. "

"And there was a ship ..." - he said again,
But then the guest rushed:
“Away, gray-haired rogue, not that
You will recognize my cane! "

But the old man's burning gaze
Or rather tenacious hands.
And like a three-year-old child
The guest suddenly became obedient.

He sat down limply on a stone
At the door, and the Sailor,
Glittering eyes at him,
He began his story like this:

“The crowd roars, the ship sails,
And there is no happier than us.
And the hill, and the church, and the lighthouse
Hiding out of sight.

The sun on the left has risen
And the ocean is on fire.
And again it goes to the bottom
On the right side.

It's getting higher every day
Rises above the mast ... "
The guest's blood boils again:
The bassoon sings nearby.

The bride ceremoniously enters the hall,
Charming every gaze.
She is as good as a rose
The chorus bows to her.

And again the guest humbles anger:
There is no way to escape.
Glittering eyes at him,
The sailor continued like this:

“O stranger! Whirlwind and storm
Came to us on the mountain.
And for a long time our ship drove a flurry,
Like a splinter over the waves.

Fog and snow and cold
On the mountain they go to us.
A huge ice rises from the waters
Shining like an emerald.

There is no sun here. Ominous light
Burns through ice and snow.
We could not live among these boulders
Neither beast nor man.

Ice is everywhere, ice is everywhere,
Everything around here is in ice
And it rattles and it rattles,
Rumbles like hell.

Good Creator! Finally
The Albatross nailed down.
And, as with a family, he is friendly with him
There was every one of our sailors.

While he was feeding from his hands,
Circling over the deck
We were saving ourselves from the snowy darkness,
Damn ice crush.

A fair wind found us
The south wind carried us.
And take food or play
The Albatross flew to us.

It is damp at night in the mist
He slept with us on the mast.
Barely visible, the moon is above him
I got up nine times. "

“Why are you looking so, gray-haired Sailor?
Save you christ
From the force of evil! " - "By my arrow
The Albatross was killed. "

“The sun on the right has risen,
And the ocean is on fire.
Now it goes to the bottom
On the left side.

Tailwind rushes the ship
On gentle waves.
No one to play or take food
Doesn't come to us.

According to everyone, it was a mortal sin,
The hellish sin was committed:
That Albatross brought us a breeze
And he was shot by me.

But a ray of the sun arose from the clouds,
And I was acquitted:
That Albatross brought the fog,
And I killed him.
He is a messenger of troubles, and there is no grief,
That I killed him.

And the wind sang, and the shaft boiled,
And the ship went ahead.
And the first one he broke the sleep
Of these silent waters

Then the breeze disappeared and the sail fell,
And every sailor
Suddenly he began to scream just to blow up
The silence of these waters.

The heat is, the sun has a view
Bloody stain.
It froze over the mast -
No bigger than the moon.

Silent sea and ship
Motionless in the stuffy
As if someone wrote
Brush them on canvas.

There is water all around, one water,
But it's dry on board.
There is water all around, only water -
Not a drop in the mouth.

My God, how empty in the depths! -
There is only rot and mucus.
And the creatures are slippery upstairs
From there we climbed.

In the darkness, the evil night fire
It burned here and there,
As in the lamps of witches - and the ocean
It was green, blue and white.

And a spirit appeared in our dreams,
Who drove us here,
The spirit that followed us
From the edge of haze and ice.

Each of us has a language
As if burned to the ground
And we are all mute, like mouths
Ash has hammered us.

Young and old are blamed for me
Their every look and gesture.
And on my neck an Albatross
He was hung like a cross.

I saw something in the sky
Some kind of stain.
And it was like a fog
And it moved.
And it seemed to me that in the distance
The canvas turns white.

The vision was approaching, it
Slid over the water
Dived, made circles,
Like the spirited spirit of the sea.

Crying ceased, laughter ceased - for a long time everyone
The voices are gone.
I dug into my hand with a black mouth
And drank blood, and with difficulty
He shouted to them: "Sails!"

Although the cry was quiet, in their eyes
He kindled a passion for life.
And all of them suddenly felt easy
And everyone took a deep breath
As if drunk.

But I peered, full of fear,
The wonderful ship is:
He walked without wind and without waves
And did not touch the waters.

The day ended, and all the west
Was engulfed in fire
The sun went down into the ocean
And reflected in it,
And that ghost swam between the sun
And by our ship.

The face of the sun is covered with a lattice,
As if it
(Have mercy, Virgo, us!) Looks
Through the prison window.

He's close! (I was horrified
And he continued to follow) -
Do not the sails shine in the rays,
How are spider webs thread?

Is it his ribs now
Is the sun shining on us?
And who is there grinning at us? -
The old woman and the skeleton!

This skeleton was blacker than graves
And hell itself.
And only in places, like rusty,
Covered with brown bark
His raw bone.

The one with him has a shameless look,
Blood red mouth
And the skin of the shroud is whiter -
That is Death, and the air next to it
Cold as ice.

They play dice there,
Not melting gloating.
And Death whistles, and Death screams:
"I won! I AM!"

Then a whirlwind rocked their brig for a moment,
He hit the skeleton,
So much so that in the holes of the eyes and mouth
There was a whistle and a groan.

And immediately a ghostly ship
Swam away silently.
And between the horns of the moon lit up
One star, like a bright eye,
And the night came.

Everybody has fear and pain on their faces
I read by the moon.
And every gaze followed me
And he sent a curse to me.

There were two hundred of them,
And everyone fell dead -
Without any torment, as if suddenly
Struck down on the spot.

And their souls rushed into the darkness
Or to heavenly lands,
And cut through the air
Like that arrow is mine.

“You frighten me, Sailor!
How thin is your hand
Like a harrier you are gray, your skin has color
Wet sand.

You are skinny as a pole, bony as death,
And your look is terrible. "
- Do not be afraid, guest, I survived
That damned night.

All alone, alone I was
For the whole ocean
And the Heavenly King did not aim
Of my mental wounds.

Handsome sailors are lying:
Oh, how many, how many there are!
And the vile slugs live
And I am among the living.

I looked at the sea, but rot
I didn't want to see.
Looked at the deck, but there
Just a pile of dead bodies.

Looked up to the sky but praying
Was cold and dry
As if it entered me
Some kind of evil spirit.

I closed my heavy eyelids
From pain, but alas,
Both the ocean and the sky
Pressed on my eyes, -
And everyone around is dead!

Cold sweat covered their faces,
And everyone, as if alive,
On me, on me he stopped
His gaze is merciless.

He who is cursed as an orphan has become
The prey of devils.
But know: the curse of the dead
Many times worse
When you look into their eyes
Seven days and seven nights.

Ascended as an ethereal ghost
Over the silence of the water
The moon also led
One or two stars.

And the hot ocean turned white
Like snow in the rays of the moon
But where the ship threw a shadow,
The color of the water was ominously scarlet
To the very depths.

Far from the shadow of the ship
In a white glow I
I saw the wondrous sea snakes:
They surfaced, and they
The scales glowed.

In the moonlight, their outfit
Was noticeable everywhere:
Green, black, blue,
And the trail was golden
Behind them on the water.

My God, what a blessing to be
Thy creation!
I sent unexpectedly
Blessings to them!
With all my soul I sent
Blessing them.

And prayed, and later
One moment
The Albatross Ripped Off Me
And fell like a stone to the bottom.

Oh sweet light-winged dream,
The joy of all hearts!
Holy Mother from heaven to me
A welcome dream, like grace,
Finally she sent it.

I dreamed about how in our empty tank
A stream of water was flowing.
And I drank in a dream, and to the noise
I woke up in the rain.

My black tongue was wet
And the larynx is cold.
And the rain was rustling, and my flesh
Saw it through the fabric.

Feeling neither hands nor legs,
I was light as fluff.
Perhaps I died in a dream
And now - a heavenly spirit?

Suddenly before me from afar
The roar of the wind came.
And the wind is already slightly
Our sail moved.

And myriads of lights
The sky exploded:
Magic fireworks were flying
Forward, backward, and down, and up
And he touched the stars.

The distant wind has become so powerful
That the sail came to life in an instant
And the rain gushed from the black clouds,
Eclipsed by the lunar face

And the shroud was torn
Hiding the moon
And, like a stream from steep steep slopes,
Lightning fell from the clouds
Into a boiling wave.

And with a howl the whirlwind overtook the ship,
But it died out immediately.
Thunder struck, and the dead
There was a heavy sigh.

They sigh and get up
Keeping silence.
How strange it is! Or a nightmare
Haunting me?

And the helmsman led the ship again,
Though the dead calm is around,
And everyone was busy with their own
Ordinary work,
Lifeless like an automaton
And scary like a phantom.

My nephew stood with a shoulder
Pressed against me.
And we pulled a rope with him
In terrible silence.
But my voice would sound there
Twice as terrible.

And everyone gathered at dawn
At the mast in a tight circle,
And a delightful song
They began to sing suddenly.

And every sound fluttered around
And flew away to the zenith,
And lonely fell down
Ile was merged with others.

It's like a lark trill
I heard, and sometimes
All birds singing voices
That the heavens fill
Between land and water.

I fancied the thunder of the orchestra
And the pipes are humming
Choir of angels, what heaven
He listens dumbfounded.

And everything was quiet. All that remains is
The buzz of the sails:
So on a summer day the stream rustles
In the quiet of dense forests
And puts them to sleep, murmuring
Among the hours of the night.

Oh, listen, listen, young guest!
"Sailor, I am conquered:
Frozen under your gaze
My soul and flesh. "

No story yet
I was not so sad.
Sadder tomorrow and wiser
You will rise from sleep.

No mortal ever heard
The stories are sadder ...
And again the sailors took up
By my work.

They began to pull the ropes,
Keeping silence
And, as if I was transparent,
They looked right through me.

And the ship was sailing until noon,
Though calm was all around.
He swam smoothly, as if he was
Led by water itself.

And sailed under him from the kingdom of winters,
Where is the eternal darkness and ice,
Harsh spirit and drove the ship
On the smooth surface of dead waters.
But at noon the sails died down,
And our course was interrupted.

We stood under the burning sun
In the silence of the sea.
But then we were thrown forward
Desperate jerk
And threw back again
Desperate jerk.

And our ship jumped suddenly,
Like a horse whose temper is wild
And I fell on deck
And he lost his feelings in an instant.

I don't know how long I lay
As if lifeless.
Without leaving oblivion,
I heard two voices
Hovering over me.

"Is this not the same person -
The question was heard, -
Whose will is evil and whose arrow
Defeated Albatross?

He committed a grave sin:
That bird loved
And the spirit was burning with love for her,
Lord of darkness and ice. "

"Oh, say something else,
While our sailor sleeps.
What drives a fast ship?
What is the view of the sea? "

“It is like a slave before the king,
Mute in motionlessness.
His huge eye now
Mesmerized by the moon.

It is subject to the moon
And in a calm, and in a hurricane.
Look, brother, how soft the look
Moon to the ocean. "

“But how can the ship have no wind
Is it possible to go like this? "

"The air in front of him will be parted
And close behind.

The night is close, we fly away,
So that darkness does not overtake us.
The ship is about to slow down
The Sailor will come to his senses. "

I wake up. Walked quietly under the moon
Our ship is tired.
And again appeared before me
Terrible crew.

And again on deck they
Crowded, and on me
Every gaze has stopped
Shining by the moon.

All the same curse forever
Their eyes froze:
I could not turn away,
Not to commemorate the saints.

And at this moment, like an evil nightmare,
Witchcraft disappeared.
I began to look ahead, almost
Seeing nothing.

So the one who is on the dark path,
Trembling, set off on a journey,
Goes and head back
Doesn't dare to turn
And leaves behind
Mysterious horror.

Then the wind blew on me
In an inaudible stream.
He breathed and did not resent
Marine surfaces.

Like a breath of spring
Like a meadow marshmallow
He caressed his cheeks and eyes,
Inspiring the world into the soul.

And the ship sailed faster and faster,
But as quietly as in a dream.
And the wind blew more and more gently,
And he clung only to me.

Is this really a dream? And I
Back in your native land?
And the hill, and the church, and the lighthouse
I find out with excitement.

We enter the harbor and in tears
I began to pray to the Creator:
"Let me wake up, or let
There will be no end to sleep! "

Smooth water bay
Clearer than glass
And the moon is reflected in it,
Huge and bright.

The bay shone while above it
A swarm of shadows did not grow
As if it was smoke curling
From torch lights.

And a swarm of purple shadows
He hovered over the ship.
I looked at my hands:
Their color was strangely scarlet.

All the same horror squeezed my chest,
I looked back:
Oh dear God! The dead
They stand before the mast!

And everyone's hands are raised
Straight like swords.
And those hands are blazing
Like torches in the night.
And their eyes reflect
Purple rays.

Praying, turning away from them,
I began to look ahead:
There is no wind in the bay and it is quiet
The vastness of coastal waters.

Here is a golden hill,
The temple shines on it,
The weather vane is motionless under the moon,
And so calm there!

And, silent, the bay shone,
So far, behind the line,
Didn't grow in the air above him
A swarm of purple shadows.

They are right above the ship
Soared above.
My gaze fell on the deck:
Oh, what was revealed to me! -

The corpses lay but I swear
By the crucifixion of the saints:
Stood over every dead man
Radiant Seraphim.

And he called me, beckoning with his hand,
Fly after him
To the land of an unfading day
Where did the light come from?

And he called me, beckoning with his hand,
And this call is dumb
I swear was sweeter for me
All earthly music.

And soon a splash of oars and a cry
I heard the rower.
Turning back involuntarily
I saw a rook floating.

But the miraculous light went out
And corpses by the moon
Again they stand behind the rope
They are taken as in a dream.
The breeze could not touch their robe,
And he clung only to me.

The boy swam with the rower in that boat -
O all-good Creator! -
I was so glad to them that I forgot
Finally about the dead.

The hermit was the third in the boat.
I heard the silence
He sang hymns loudly that he
Lay in the wilderness. -
The blood of the Albatross will be washed away
From a tortured soul

The hermit is at the very waters
Lives in the wilderness of the forest.
And his song is heard all around
And with a foreign sailor
Sometimes he interprets.

In prayers anchorite
Spends the whole day.
He replaced his pillow
Mossy tree stump.

Chaln was approaching. “How strange! -
A voice rang out from the rower -
Where is this wondrous paradise light,
Shining on us now? "

The saint said: “No one on our
The call does not answer.
The hull of the ship was rotting,
And the fabric at the sails
How thin it is, look!
So in the middle of the woods

Dry leaves smolder - their
Carries away the stream
When the snow falls around
And the she-wolf eats her offspring
Under the angry cry of owls. "

"I'm scared! - answered the rower -
It was a demonic light! "
"Do not be afraid and lead the boat!" -
Anchorite ordered.

Chaln was approaching. I froze
Without moving your hand,
And listened to the terrible rumble
Under the keel of the ship.

And thunder struck, lifting from the bottom
A giant wave
And a moment later the ship left
Lead deep.

The sky and the bay trembled,
And I was full of fear
When, like a corpse, surfacing,
Surrendered to the will of the waves
But miraculously survived again:
I got into the same boat.

He circled there where the ship is
Struck by the underwater thunder.
Silence fell, and only an echo
Was hovering over the hill.

The rower fell unconscious, barely
I opened my eyes.
The saint prayed and looked
Anxiously to heaven.

I sat down to row, but here is a child,
Looks like it’s gone crazy:
Laughs loudly, at me
Looks evil
"Ha! Ha! - shouts, - a cheerful look!
The demon took up the oar! "

But here is my dear coast,
And I stepped onto the ground!
The saint barely left the canoe
And he was completely exhausted.

"Listen to the confession, father!" -
Baptized, anchorite
He asked me: “Who are you?
Give me an answer immediately! "

And my bitter story
He immediately heard
And from the excruciating melancholy
I was released.

But often since then I
Longing oppresses again
And makes this come true
Repeat all the time.

And I, like the night, from end to end
I go and every time
I recognize in a crowd of people
Someone who should listen to mine
Tragic story.

Outside that door, all the feast is a mountain,
And there are no number of guests.
A girl's choir sings in the garden,
The bride is so sweet!
But do you hear the ringing? Me to the temple
The bells are calling.

O guest! I was so lonely
In lifeless seas
How was not even the Lord himself
In transcendental worlds.

O young guest! I paid tribute
Fun and feasts.
But sweeter with kind people
Go to the temple to pray.

Go to the temple as commanded
Our heavenly Father,
Where, having acquired grace,
Child pray together
Both the old man and the youth.

Goodbye now but believe but believe
Only he is blessed forever,
Who is dear and every beast,
And every person.

Blessed is he who prays for everyone,
For all living flesh
What I have created and loved
Our great Lord. "

A sailor with a crazy sparkle of eyes
And a white beard
Disappeared, and the guest wandered over to himself,
And he was not himself.

Gone away from the wedding doors
Confused, overwhelmed
But sadder and wiser
He woke up in the morning.

ST. Coleridge

NIGHTINGALE

Colloquial poem,
written in April 1798

In the west, you can no longer distinguish
Not a streak of sunset fire
No paint, no transparent clouds.
Let's climb the bridge overgrown with moss
Let's look down at the glittering stream
We cannot hear here, for it flows
For soft grasses. What a night around!
What peace! Let the stars be dim
Imagine spring rains
Caressing the ground - then we
The dim sky will be pleasant.
But quieter! The nightingale starts a song.
He is "more musical and sadder" of all birds! *
Are all the birds sadder? The fiction is empty! -
After all, there is no sadness in nature at all.
Midnight wanderer who remembered his
Past humiliation, or illness,
Or unrequited love
(In everything he saw his own sorrow,
And even gentle trills to him
They told about her), the first was,
Who called this singing sad.
And the poet began to repeat this nonsense,
Who only knows a lot about rhymes, -
It would be more useful for him in the forest
The meadows stretch out by the stream
Under the sun or in the glow of the moon,
Captured by landscapes, sounds and elements
To forget with my soul and forget my own
And the song and the glory! Glory to him
Merged with immortal nature,
And the song would make him stronger
Love nature and be yourself
Loved like nature! But alas,
Young poets, as always,
Spring evenings
At the ball or in the theater, so then
Over Philomela's complaints again
Sigh with tender compassion.
My friend and you, his sister! Given
Our knowledge is different: in voices
Nature is only bliss and love
We hear. Here is a merry nightingale
Disperses, hurries to pour out
Your love hymn in beautiful sounds
As if worrying that it's night for a song
The April one is too short,
And quickly release the soul
Strives from music. I found
A picturesque oak tree near
Abandoned castle: all of it
Already overgrown by the wild underbrush,
The paths have come to desolation -
On them are grass and weed flowers.
But I have nowhere so many nightingales
Didn't come across: near and far
One another in dense thickets
He called, then sang in response,
And the babbling trill interrupted
Hasty clatter and merged by myself
With a low roll, pleasing to the ear, -
The air was full of such harmony
That you, closing your eyes, could the night
Take a day! When lit
Moon bushes with dewy foliage,
It's easy to see the shine among the branches
Their bright eyes, bottomless bright eyes,
As long as the living flashlight of the firefly
Burns in the dark.

The sweetest of the virgins
In his hospitable house
Living by the castle at a late hour
(She is like a priestess whose gods
Nature in the grove is subordinated)
Glides along the trails knowing by heart
All the trills, waiting for that time,
When the clouds cover the moon
And the world will freeze in silence, and again
In the radiance of the moonlit heaven and earth
Awake, and a chorus of sleepless birds
Will blow up the silence with his song,
As if the wind of a hundred air harps
Suddenly touched! And in front of that maiden
The agile nightingale will turn
On a branch trembling slightly in the wind
And sings to the beat of his movements,
Rocking like a drunken Delight.

Goodbye singer! Goodbye to the evening!
See you soon, friends!
We had a wonderful time with you.
It's time to go home, and the song sounds again.
I would gladly stay! My baby,
Trying with his babble
To imitate various sounds,
Now I would bring a hand to my ear,
Lifting a finger so that we
Have listened! Let him from childhood
Friends with nature! He is already familiar
With a night luminary: somehow not in myself
The kid woke up (it is strange that he
I had a sad dream at all)
With him in my arms, I went out to our kindergarten,
He saw the moon and cut off
Sobs, and suddenly laughed,
And yellow moonlight in his eyes
Splashed in tears! Interrupt here
Father's story. But if heaven
Will prolong my life, let the child grow
Under these songs and will love the night,
How joy! So goodbye, nightingale!
And you goodbye, dear friends!

_____________________________
* "More musical and sad" - this place in Milton is much more than a simple description: it expresses the character of a sad person and, therefore, contains dramatic features. The author makes this remark in order to protect himself from the accusation of frivolously playing around the Milton line: the accusation of ridicule of the Bible would be more serious for him. (Coleridge's note)

S.-T. Coleridge

GOODIE BLAKE AND HARRY JILL
True story

What a sickness, what a strength
And days and months in a row
That shakes Harry Gill
That his teeth are chattering?
Harry has no shortage
In vests, fur coats.
And everything that the patient is wearing
Warmed b and nine.

April, December, June
Whether in the heat, in the rain, in the snow,
Under the sun or full moon
Harry's teeth are chattering!
It's the same with Harry all year round -
Both young and old are talking about him:
In the afternoon, in the morning, all night long
Harry's teeth are chattering!

He was young and well-knit
For the craft of a drover:
There is a slanting fathom in his shoulders,
Blood and milk is his cheek.
Goody Blake was old
And everyone could tell you
What need she lived in
How wretched her dark house is.

Thin shoulders behind yarn
She did not straighten day and night.
Alas, it happened to candles
She was unable to save.
Stood on the cold side
The hill is her frozen house.
And coal was at a great price
In a remote village volume.

She has no close friend
She has no one to share shelter and food with,
And in her unheated shack
One will have to die.
Only a clear sunny time
With the arrival of summer heat
Like a bird of the field
She can be fun.

When will the ice cover the streams -
Her life is completely unbearable.
So cruel frost burns her,
That my bones are trembling!
When it's so empty and dead
Her dwelling at a late hour, -
Oh guess what it's like
Do not close her eyes from the cold!

Her happiness rarely fell,
When, around mening robbery,
Dry branches to her hut
And the night wind drove the chips.
Not even the rumor remembered
So that Goody is stocked up for future use.
And she barely had enough firewood
Only for a day or two.

When frost pierces the veins
And old bones ache -
Garden wattle Harry Gill
Her eyes are drawn.
And now, leaving his hearth,
As soon as the winter day fades away
She's a cold hand
Feels for that wattle fence.

But about Goody's old walks
Harry Gill guessed.
He mentally threatened her with punishment,
He decided to lie in wait for Goody.
He went to hunt her down
Into the fields at night, into the snow, into the blizzard,
Leaving warm housing
Leaving the hot bed.

And then one day for a hay
He hid, swearing frost.
Under the bright full moon
The frozen stubble crunched.
Suddenly he hears a noise and immediately
It descends from the hill like a shadow:
Yes, this is Goody Blake just
Has come to destroy the fence!

Harry was glad of her diligence,
He bloomed with an evil smile,
And he waited, as long as - pole by pole -
She will fill her hem.
When did she go without strength
Back with my burden -
Harry Jill shouted ferociously
And blocked her way.

And he grabbed her with his hand,
With a hand as heavy as lead
With a strong and evil hand,
Shouting: "Got caught, finally!"
The full moon was shining.
I will drop my load on the ground,
She prayed to the Lord,
Kneeling in the snow.

Falling into the snow, Goody prayed
And raised her hands to the sky:
“Let him be freezing forever!
Lord, deprive him of the warmth! "
That was her plea.
Harry Jill heard her -
And at the same moment from toes to forehead
A chill ran through him.

Shaking him all night, and in the morning
A shiver ran through him.
With a sad face, a dull look
He did not look like himself.
Didn't help to escape from the cold
He has a cabby sheepskin coat.
And at two he could not get warm,
And in three he was as cold as a corpse.

Caftans, blankets, fur coats -
Everything is useless from now on.
Harry's teeth are chattering, chattering
Like a window sash in the wind.
In winter and summer, in the heat and in the snow
They knock, knock, knock!
He will not keep warm forever! -
Both old and young talk about him.

He doesn't want to talk to anyone.
Into the glow of the day, into the darkness of the night
He only mumbles plaintively,
That it is very cold to him.
Extraordinary this story
I have told you truthfully.
May they be in your memory
And Goody Blake and Harry Jill!

W. Wordsworth

WE ARE SEVEN

The child is innocent, whose
Every breath is so light
In whom life flows like a stream
What could he know about death?

I met a girl while walking
Dear Field.
"I'm eight," said the child
With a curly head.

Her clothes are pathetic
And a wild look.
But the sweet look of her eyes
He was meek and open.

“And how many brothers and sisters
In your family, my light? "
Casting a surprised look
“There are seven of us,” she answered.

"And where are they?" - "Two of us
They gave it to someone else's land,
And two are at sea now.
And all of us seven are with me.

Sister and brother lie in the shadows -
The earth covered them.
And with mom we live alone
At their relatives' graves. "

"My child, how can you
Be the seven with you
Kohl two at sea now
And two in the distance a stranger? "

“There are seven of us, - her answer was simple, -
My sister and brother
As soon as you enter the churchyard -
They lie under the tree. "

"You are frolicking here, my angel,
And they will never get up.
Kohl two sleep in the damp earth,
There are five of you left. "

“In the flowers of their living graves.
Twelve steps to them
From the door to the house where we live
And we keep their peace.

I often knit stockings there,
I sew clothes for myself.
And I sit on the ground next to them,
And I sing songs to them.

And on a clear summer sometimes,
On bright evenings
I take a bowl with me
And I'm having dinner there.

Jane left us first.
She moaned day and night.
The Lord saved her from pain,
How it became impossible for her.

We played there - me and John,
Where is the grave stone
Grew above her, surrounded
Withered grass

When did the snow fall asleep on the way
And the skating rink shone
John had to leave too:
He went to bed with his sister. "

“But if a brother and sister are in paradise, -
I shouted, "How many are you?"
She responded to my speech:
"There are seven of us now!"

“They are not, alas! They are dead!
Their home is in heaven! "
She is still: "There are seven of us!" -
Without listening to me at all,
She stood her ground.

W. Wordsworth

BLACKTHORN

I
This blackthorn is old, yes,
Which is tricky to imagine
How it bloomed in the old days, -
He turned gray a long time ago.
He is as tall as a small child,
But everything does not bend, a decrepit bush.
Deprived of foliage, stripped of thorns,
By the tenacity of tenacious boughs he
Lives, gloomy and empty.
And, like a stone or a cliff,
He was overgrown with lichen.

II
Like a stone or a cliff, his
To the very top covered with lichen,
Heavy moss hung on it,
Like a mournful harvest.
The mosses have taken the thorns,
And he, unhappy, is compressed by them
So close that you can see
Their goal, and they have one goal:
They want him
To raze to the ground as soon as possible,
Bury forever in it.

III
On a mountain ridge, high above,
Where is the hurricane, mighty and angry,
Cuts the clouds with a whistle
And collapses on a dol, -
You will find near the path
Old thorns without labor,
And a muddy dwarf pond
You will immediately find here -
There is always water in it.
I could easily measure the pond:
Three feet long, two feet across.

IV
And behind the gray thorns
About four steps away
A hill will appear before you
Dressed in bright moss.
All the colors of the world, all the colors
What only the eye loves,
You will see on a piece of land
As if the hands of the fairies weaved
Divine pattern.
That hill half a foot high
Shines with wondrous beauty.

V
Oh, how pleasing to the eye here
Olive and scarlet! -
Such branches, ears, stars
Not in nature anymore.
Blackthorn in its old age
Unattractive and gray
And the hill that is so nice
Similar to the grave of a child -
Its size is so small.
But I am more beautiful than graves
I have not found it anywhere else.

VI
But if you were on a decrepit bush,
I wanted to look at the wonderful hill,
Be careful: not always
You can go.
There is often a woman alone
Wrapped in a scarlet cloak
Sits between a small hill
With a similar grave, and a pond,
And crying is heard
And her loud moan is heard:
"Oh, my bitter grief!"

Vii

The sufferer hurries there.
All the winds know her there
And every star.
There, near the thorns, alone
She sits on the top
When the blue of the sky is clear
With the roar of fierce storms,
In frosty silence.
And you can hear, you can hear her cry:
"Oh, my bitter grief!"

VIII
“But explain why she
And on a clear day, and at night
Climbs a gloomy peak, -
And in the rain, and in the snow, and in the heat?
Why have a decrepit bush
She sits on the top
When the blue of the sky is clear
With the roar of fierce storms,
In frosty silence?
What caused this mournful groan?
Why does he not subside? "

IX
I don't know: the truth is dark
And it is not known to anyone.
But if you want to go
To a wonderful hill
That looks like a child's grave,
And look at the bush, at the pond -
Make sure first that
That the woman returned to the house
And does not yearn here,
Where not a single person
It will never come nearer to it.

X
"But why is she here
And on a clear day, and at night,
In every wind keeps the way,
Under any star? "
I will tell you everything I know
But it will be a vain labor
If you yourself will not go to the mountains
And you won't find that thorn
And a dwarf pond.
You will surely find the trail there
Tragedies of the past years.

XI
Until you visited
On this gloomy height
I'm ready to tell you
Everything that I know.
Already twenty years have passed since then
How I fell in love with Martha Rae
How captivated a girl's heart
Her buddy Stephen Hill
And he became dearer to her,
How happy Martha was
And she was merry and blooming.

XII
And the wedding day was appointed,
But for her did not come:
Made an oath of allegiance to another
Thoughtless Stephen Hill.
The traitor went down the aisle
With his other darling.
And they say that this afternoon
A fierce flames burst into flames
Consciousness of Martha Rae.
And, as if incinerated,
She dried up with grief.

XIII
Six months have passed, the forest is still
Rustled with green foliage,
And Martha was drawn upward
On the fatal crest.
Everyone saw that there was a child in her,
But darkness was her brain,
Although from unbearable torment
Suddenly became reasonable
Her sad look.
And the one who could become a father
It would be better if he were dead!

XIV
There is still a dispute here,
How could I perceive
The movements of the baby
Crazy mother.
Another Christmas past
One old man assured us
That Martha, sensing a child,
As if I woke up, finding
Reason at the same moment
And God rest her shore,
As the deadline drew near.

Xv
And that's all I know
And he hid nothing, believe me.
What happened to the poor baby
A mystery now.
Yes, and he was born or not -
Nobody knows this
And do not know if he is alive,
Or was born dead,
It is only known that
That Martha is more often since those times
Climbs the mountain slope.

Xvi
And that winter at night
The wind fell from the mountains
And reported to our churchyard
Some wild choir.
One heard that in the choir
Living creatures of the voice,
Another vouched with his head,
That the howling of the dead was heard
But these miracles
And a strange cry in the stillness of the nights
Didn't associate with Martha Rae.

XVII
Hurries up to the thorns
And she sits there for a long time,
Wrapped in a scarlet cloak
Full of suffering.
I didn't know about her when
I reached these mountains for the first time.
Look from the top to the surf
I walked with a spyglass
And climbed to the peak.
But the storm struck, and the haze
My eyes were clouded over.

Xviii
Thick fog and heavy rain
My path was immediately blocked.
And the wind is ten times more powerful
Suddenly began to blow.
My gaze through the veil of rain
I found a rocky ledge,
That could hide me
And I set off in all my zeal,
But instead of imaginary rocks
I saw a woman in the darkness:
She was sitting on the ground.

XIX
Everything became clear to me as soon as
I saw her face.
Turning away, I heard:
"Oh, my bitter grief!"
And I found out that she was there
Sits for hours, and when
The moon will flood the firmament
And a light wind will stir
The murkiness of the gloomy pond, -
Her cry is heard in the village:
"Oh, my bitter grief!"

XX
“But what are the thorns to her, and the pond,
And this light breeze?
Why go to a blooming hill
Does rock bring her? "
They talk like a bitch
The baby was hanged by her
Or drowned in that pond
When she was delirious
But everyone only agrees
With the fact that it lies under the hill,
Dotted with wonderful moss.

XXI
And there is a rumor that red moss
Just from the blood of a child's red,
But to blame such a sin
I wouldn't do Martu.
And if you look closely
To the bottom of the pond, then, they say,
The lake will show you
Child's poor face,
His motionless gaze.
And from you that child
He will not take his sad eyes away.

XXII
And there were those who swore
To expose the mother of villainy,
And only they gathered
To unearth a grave -
To their amazement, motley moss
Stirred as if alive
And suddenly the grass trembled
Around the hill - rumor repeats,
But everyone in the village
They stand, as before, on their own:
The child lies under the wonderful moss.

XXIII
And I see the mosses choking
Old and gray thorns,
And they lean from top to bottom, and they want
Level it to the ground.
And whenever Martha Rae
Sits on a mountain height
And on a clear noon, and in the night,
When the rays of the beautiful stars
Shine in silence -
I can hear, hear her cry:
"Oh, my bitter grief!"

W. Wordsworth

MAD MOTHER

Off-road at random, -
Simple hair, wild look, -
Burned by the fierce sun,
In a deaf land she wanders.
And in her arms is her child.
(Or is this the delirium of a sick soul?)
Taking a breath under the haystack,
On a stone in the silence of the forest
She sings, full of love,
And her speech is quite clear:

“Everyone says: I am insane.
But my little one my life,
I'm happy when I sing
I forget my pain
And I pray you baby
Do not be afraid, do not be afraid of me!
It's like you're sleeping in a cradle
And keeping you from trouble
Oh my dear, I remember mine
A huge debt to you.

My brain was on fire
And pain blurred my eyes
And the chest is cruel at that time
The swarm gnawed at ominous spirits.
But waking up, having come to myself,
How happy I am to see again
And feel your child
His living flesh and blood!
I have conquered a nightmare
My boy is with me, only him.

To my chest, son, snuggle
With tender lips - they
As if from my heart
Draw out his sorrow.
Rest on my chest
Touch her with your fingers;
Gives her relief
Your cool palm.
Your hand is fresh, light
Like a breath of a breeze.

Love, love me baby!
You give your mother happiness!
Don't be afraid of the evil waves below
When I carry in my arms
You along the sharp ridges of rocks.
Rocks do not promise me trouble,
I am not afraid of the roaring shaft -
After all, you save my life.
Blessed am I, child keeping:
He can't survive without me.

Don't be afraid, little one! Believe me
You, brave as a beast,
I will translate through the rivers
And through the dense edges.
I will build you a place to live:
From the leaves - a soft bed.
And if you, my child,
You will not leave your mother before the deadline, -
My beloved, in the wilderness of the forest
You will sing like a thrush in spring.

Sleep on my chest, chick!
Your father doesn't love her.
She faded, faded.
Well, my light, she is sweet.
She's yours. And it doesn't matter
That my beauty is gone:
You will always be faithful to me
And in the fact that I became dark,
There is some use: after all, pale cheeks
You can't see mine, son.

Do not listen to lies, my love!
I married your father.
We will fill in the forest shadow
A happy life our days.
He will never live with me
If he neglected you!
But don't be afraid: he is not evil,
He himself is unhappy, God knows!
And every day with you alone
We will pray for him.

You, darling, with the song of owls
I will teach in the darkness of the woods.
The baby's lips are motionless.
Are you not full, my soul?
How strange they got confused in an instant
Your heavenly features!
My dear boy, your eyes are wild!
Are you crazy too?
Awful sign! If this is so -
In me forever sadness and darkness.

Oh, smile, my lamb!
And calm down your mother!
I managed to overcome everything:
I was looking for my father day and night,
I learned the rage of the spirits of darkness
And the taste of peanuts.
But don't be afraid - we will find
Father among the thickets of the forest.
All my life in the forest land,
Son, we'll be like in paradise. "

W. Wordsworth

BOY IDIOT

Beats eight. March night
Light. The moon is floating above
Among the blue sky
The sad, long cry of an owl
Sounds in an unknown distance:
Oo-hoo, oo-hoo, oo-hoo, oo-hoo!

What's up, Betty Foy? You
As if the fever was hitting!
Why are you in such torment?
Where is ready to ride
Your poor idiot boy?

Under the serene moon
You are dazed by the hassle.
What's the use of that, Betty Foy?
Why is your
Favorite idiot boy?

Hurry, take him off the horse,
Otherwise, trouble will happen to him!
He growls - it's fun for him,
But Betty, the boy doesn't need anything
Girth, stirrup and bridle.

The whole world would say: what nonsense!
Think about it, because the night is around!
But isn't Betty Foy a mother?
If she could predict everything -
She would have been driven mad by fear.

What is driving her through the door now? -
Neighbor Susan Gale is sick.
She, old, cannot live alone,
She's very bad this night
And she moans plaintively.

There are dwellings a mile away from them.
And Susan Gale fell ill completely.
And no one is near them,
Who would give them good advice,
How to help her, how to comfort her.

And Betty's husband is not at home, -
For a week, for a few days
He is cutting wood in a distant grove.
Who's interested in old Susan
Will he show, take pity on her?

And Betty brought the pony -
He was always meek and sweet:
Did he hurt, did he laugh with joy,
Or ran to the pasture,
Or he carried brushwood from the forest.

The pony is equipped for the journey.
And - has it been heard? - that,
Who Betty is loved with all my heart,
I must rule it today -
Poor idiot boy.

Let him go to the city across the bridge,
Where the water is light under the moon.
There is a house near the church, a doctor lives in it, -
After him and you have to race at a gallop,
So that Susan Gale doesn't die.

The guy doesn't need any boots
No spurs, no whip.
Just a branch of the holly John,
Like a sword, armed
And waves it in the heat of the moment.

Admiring son, for the hundredth time
Betty Foy told John
Where to turn and how to turn off,
Where is he ordered the way,
Which path to follow.

But her main sadness
Was: "Dear Johnny, you
Then hurry up and ride home
Without stopping, my boy
Otherwise, it’s not long before the disaster! ”

In response, he waved his hand so
And nodded with all his might,
So pulled at the reason that the mother
I could easily understand him
He didn’t say any words.

Johnny has been on horseback for a long time -
Betty's soul hurts all the time
And Betty is all full of worries
And gently strokes the horse's side,
Parting with them is not in a hurry.

Here the pony took the first step -
Oh, poor idiot boy! -
From head to toe happiness
Embraced by numbness,
Doesn't move the reins.

With a motionless branch in hand
The spellbound John froze.
The moon in the sky
Above him in the same silence,
As silent as he is.

He rejoiced so with all his heart,
I forgot about the sword
In my hand, I completely forgot
That he is a rider to the envy of everyone, -
He was happy! He was happy!

And Betty is happy herself, -
Until he disappeared into the darkness
Proud of herself, proud of him:
How unperturbed he looks!
How cleverly in the saddle!

In his valiant silence
He's retiring now,
Passing the pillar, around the bend.
And Betty stands and waits
When he is out of sight.

Here he purred, he made a noise,
Like a mill, in silence.
And the pony is as gentle as a sheep.
And Betty listens to the messenger
And rejoices from the heart.

Now she has to go to Susan Gale.
Johnny rides in the moonlight
Murmurs and mutters and sings
Cheerful idiot boy
Under the screams of owls in the darkness of the night.

And a pony with a boy in harmony:
He will also be quiet and sweet
And he will not lose his cheerful spirit,
At least he became blind and deaf,
He lived at least hundreds of years.

This horse thinks! He's smarter
The one who rides a horse.
But knowing Johnny like no one else
Now he will not judge that
Created on his back.

And so they are through the moonlight
They gallop through the moonlit valley into the night.
There is a house near the church, and there is a knock on the door,
John has to wake up the doctor
To help old Susan Gale.

And Betty Foy, having come to the patient,
Leads his story about Johnny:
How courageous he is, how clever
What a relief he is
Deliver to Susan Gale now.

And Betty, telling her story,
It seeks to take on a mournful look,
Sitting with a plate over the patient, -
As if Susan Gale is alone
She belongs to the soul.

But Betty gives out a face:
You can clearly read in it,
That she is happy at this moment
Could give in full
Any five or six years.

But Betty looks a little
Alarming for some time now,
And her hearing is on her guard:
Doesn't anyone go already?
But the night space is quiet and dumb.

Sighs, moans Susan Gale.
And Betty to her: "They're on their way
And - of this I am convinced

They will arrive after ten. "

But Susan Gale moans heavily.
The clock is striking eleven.
And Betty to her: “I am convinced
As in the fact that the moon is in the sky -
Our Johnny will be here soon. "

That beats midnight. Johnny is not
Although the moon is in the sky.
Betty is fastened, that there is strength,
But she too, poor, the light is not pleasant,
And Susan is full of awe.

Just half an hour ago
Scolded Betty Foy the messenger:
"Lazy little dunce,
Where, unfortunate, has he disappeared? " -
Now there is no face on it.

The blissful hours have passed
And there is no face on it now.
"Ah, Susan, that's right, the doctor
I made myself wait, but now
They are already rushing towards us, believe me! "

It's worse than old Susan Gale.
And Betty - what should she do?
What should she do, Betty Foy, -
Leave, stay with the patient?
Who can tell what to do for her?

And now the first hour has struck
Burying hopes Betty.
The moon shines all around
And on the road outside the window -
No man, no horse.

And Susan's fear creeps in
And appears to be sick
Johnny can drown
Abyss forever somewhere, -
All this will be their fault!

But only she said:
"Save, Lord, he is on his way!" -
Like Betty, rising from her bed,
She screamed, “Susan, I have to go!
You, poor, forgive me!

I need to find Johnny:
Mentally he is weak, in the saddle he is bad.
I won't part with him anymore
Only be he safe and sound! " -
And Susan to her: "Have mercy on God!"

And Betty told her: “How to be with you?
And how can I relieve your pain?
Perhaps I should stay all the same?
Although you will not live long -
I'll be here again soon. "

“Go, darling, go!
And how can you help me? .. "-
And prays to God Betty Foy
About mercy for the sick,
And immediately runs out.

She runs through the moonlight
Valley of the moon at a late hour.
About how she hurries
And what does he say at the same time -
Will the story be boring?

On a dark day and above
In a road post and in a bush,
In the twinkling of distant stars
In the rustling of crow's nests, -
She fancies Johnny everywhere.

Here is Betty running across the bridge,
Tormenting himself with the thought: he
Descended from a pony to the moon
Catch in the stream - and to the bottom
Fuck her poor John!

Here on the hill she is - from him
A wide view is open to her.
But in the open and in the wilderness,
On Mount Betty, not a soul
And horses do not hear hooves.

"Oh my God! What happened to him?
Climbed up an oak tree and couldn't get off?
Or some gypsy
He was shamelessly deceived,
And then dragged away to the camp?

Or this mischievous horse brought
Him to the cave of the evil dwarves?
Or in the castle, sparing no effort,
He caught ghosts,
And he himself died in captivity with them? "

And Betty is in a hurry to the city,
Now Susan Gale blames:
“Don't be so sick -
My John would stay with me
Would always please me. "

In grievous frustration, he does not spare
She is the doctor himself,
Scolding him desperately.
And even a meek horse
Scolds Betty in the heat of the moment.

But here is the city, here is the house -
She is at the doctor's door.
And the city that arose before her -
It is so wide, it is so large
And quiet as the moon in the sky.

And so she knocks on the door -
Oh, how her hand trembles! -
And opening the window sash,
The healer casts a sleepy gaze
From under the nightcap.

"Ah, doctor, doctor, where is my son?"
“I have been sleeping for a long time. What do you need?"
“But, sir, I'm Betty Foy,
Lost my dear Johnny
You have seen him often.

He's a little out of his mind ... "
But the doctor became very angry
And menacingly said to her in response:
"Is he in his mind - I don't care!" -
I closed the window and went to bed.

“Oh woe to me! Oh woe to me!
Alas, my death comes!
I've been looking for Johnny everywhere
But I didn't find it anywhere, -
I am more unhappy than all mothers! "

She stands, looks around:
Quiet everywhere, sleep everywhere.
What's the rush this time? -
And now on the tower the third hour
Thunders like a death knell.

She's out of town in anguish
Runs, maddened to match.
Full of my sorrow,
She forgot the doctor
Send to Susan Gale, who is sick.

And Betty is on the hill again:
Every bush is visible from here.
“How can I survive - that's the problem! -
Such a night in my age?
Oh God, the path is still empty! "

Human speech and the ringing of horseshoes
In the silent region, they are not audible.
It is easier for her in the silence of the oak groves
Hear the sprouting of herbs
Streams underground stream.

And in the blue gloom around
The clicks of owls do not stop:
So sometimes lovers,
Parting in the darkness of midnight
A sad call is sent to each other.

Pond green water
The thought of sin inspires her.
And so as not to rush there,
From the edge of a terrible pond
She walks away quickly.

And cries sitting on the ground
And more and more tears are pouring:
"My pony, pony dear,
You bring Johnny home
And we will live without worries. "

And, crying, she thinks:
“The pony has a kind, meek disposition,
He Johnny loves mine
And inadvertently into his forest
Delivered, getting lost on the road. "

From the ground she is elated
Hope, jumps up instantly.
From sinful thoughts by the pond
There is no trace left, -
And the temptation was not great.

Reader, I know everything
Johnny and his horse
I'm glad to bring them to light,
But such a brilliant plot
How to tell me in poetry?

Perhaps with his horse
Dangerous mountain path
He climbed a steep rock,
To get a star from heaven
And bring her home.

Or, turning on a horse,
With his back to the withers,
In a wonderful slumber, he is mute and deaf,
Like a disembodied spirit rider
He wanders through the valley.

No, he's a hunter, an enemy of the sheep!
He is vicious, he instills fear!
Give him only six months -
And this fertile land
He will turn to ashes and dust.

Or from head to toe on fire,
He is a demon, not a man, -
He rushes, formidable and winged,
And sows terror, sows hell
And it will race like this forever.

Oh Muses, help again
I find inspiration
Allow - even if not in full -
I describe those events
What happened to him on the way.

Ah, Muses, what are you mine
Do you neglect pleading?
Why without my fault
They are not disposed to me
Are you so beloved by me?

But who is it in the distance
Looks at the noisy waterfall
And with the moon shining
Sits carelessly on a horse
Embraced by numbness?

His horse grazes freely,
As if he is deprived of his bridle.
To the lunar disk, to the swarm of stars
Our hero does not look at all, -
But this is Johnny! It's him!

Where's Betty? What about her?
She sheds tears as before:
She can hear a booming stream
But as long as she does not know
Where is the poor idiot boy.

She hurries to the sound of the water
He walks through the dark thicket.
Take a breath Betty Foy
There your pony and Johnny yours,
Favorite idiot boy.

Why are you standing dumbfounded? -
The end of suffering is coming!
He is not a ghost, not an evil gnome,
And found with difficulty
Your son, your idiot boy.

Clasping her hands, Betty Foy
A cry of glee emits,
It rushes like that stream
Almost knocks the ponies off their feet, -
The idiot boy is with her again!

And he hums, he laughs,
Whether for joy - God will understand!
And Betty is happy, she
From his drunk voice:
The idiot boy is with her again!

And then she is to the tail of the horse,
Then he will rush to the withers again, -
In such bliss Betty Foy
That sometimes suffocates
And tears are difficult for her to stop.

She is in an ecstatic daze
Kisses his son again and again
Johnny is haunted:
With her again the idiot boy
Her soul, her love.

And imperceptibly to myself
She caresses the horse too, -
And the pony is probably glad
Though it seems at first glance
Frozen, keeping dispassion.

“Forget about the doctor, son!
All is well, you are great! " -
And the cheerful John hums again,
And the pony is taken away by her
From the waterfall at last.

There are almost no stars in the sky,
The moon faded over the hill.
And every moment you hear it more
Rustling of wings among the branches
In the forest, still dumb.

And the travelers go home
Tired as never before.
But who hurries to them at such an hour,
Limps, waves his hand, -
Susan Gale? Oh yeah!

She was tormented in bed,
I thought with fear all night:
What's up with Betty, where is poor John?
And her mind was darkened,
And the weakness receded away.

Full of doubts and worries
She tossed and turned all night.
Assumptions of grave darkness
Drove the poor woman crazy
But the infirmity receded away.

She said longingly:
“How can I live in such horror?
Perhaps I'll go to the forest! "
And suddenly - lo and behold of miracles! -
She jerked out of bed.

By the forest path towards her
Betty, horse and John come out.
She calls her friends ...
How to describe their date? -
Oh, it was a magical dream!

And the owls are already exhausted
And they finished their singing,
While friends wandered home.
From those owls I began the ballad -
And with them I will complete it.

While friends wandered home
Johnny's mother asked:
“Where have you wandered in the dark,
What did you see, what did you hear? -
Try to tell it right. "

And Johnny often on this night
Listened to the singing of owls
And raised his eyes to the moon, -
In the moonlight on horseback
He wandered for nine hours.

And therefore, looking at the mother,
He gave a decisive answer,
And this is what he said aloud:
“Down, down! - the rooster cried,
And the light of the sun was cold "-
So said Johnny bold.
And then my story is over.