Лишь то, что ненавижу навсегда:
Пост и молитва.
Св. Патрик.
Продолжай.
Ойсин.
Да, да,
Мне суждено прожить остаток дней,
Скитаясь в мире смертных меж теней,
И двери в Рай не распахнутся мне.
Однажды я стоял у волн прибоя,
И пена, погрузившись в забытье,
Несла к земле разбитое копье
Того, кто не вернулся с поля боя.
Я взял его, и, видя пятна крови
На древке переломленном, рыдал
И фениев забытых вспоминал,
Как выступали мы на бой суровый,
И к торжеству, и к гибели готовы…
И Ниав юная неслышно подошла.
Не зная, что могло со мной случиться,
Она меня по имени звала,
Дрожала, как испуганная птица.
Мы поняли: былого не вернуть.
Коня мы разыскали на поляне
И оседлали, приготовясь в путь.
Я услыхал: “Его глаза туманит
Вся скорбь земли, все горести людские”.
И вновь открылись нам пути морские,
И вновь неслись копыта скакуна
По пурпурным мерцающим волнам,
Закатом золотым озарены.
Бессмертные остались вдалеке
Бродить в лесах, как призраки, как сны,
И танцевать, как тени, на песке,
Рука в руке гулять по склонам гор
Иль грезить, глядя на морской простор;
И лица, словно сумрачные звезды,
Окутывать прозрачной дымкой сна;
И устремлять дремотный взор туманный
На солнце в одеянии шафранном,
Садящееся в воды океана;
И петь беспечно; словно капли меда,
Лились слова прощальные вдали,
И размывали пурпурные воды
Границы очарованной земли.
“Старик огонь пытается раздуть,
Он в доме сына, брата или друга
Зажился; не пора ли в дальний путь?
Его заботы шепчутся друг с другом;
Он слышит, как метель гудит в трубе,
Склоняется к огню и весь трясется,
Но грезит о победах и борьбе
И помнит лай собак и блики солнца.
А мы средь рощ зеленых и полей
Не думаем о будущем в тревоге,
Ведь мы пребудем вечно на земле,
Живые, нестареющие боги.
Зайчонок подрастает средь игры,
Любуясь жизнью дивно-изобильной,
Но прежде, чем возьмет ее дары,
Уже хромает, старый и бессильный.
И стаи птиц азийских на ветвях,
Как яркие крылатые тюльпаны,
И гребни пенные в бушующих морях,
Поющие о тайнах океана,
Обречены шепнуть: “Несправедливо”;
И зимородок станет горсткой пыли,
И на песке волна умрет с отливом,
И люди упокоятся в могиле.
А нам роса любви туманит очи
До той поры, покуда Бог дохнёт
На звезды, и, покинув небосвод,
Луна увянет бледной розой ночи”.
Комментарий У.Б. Йейтса:
«Эта поэма основана на средневековых ирландских диалогах между святым Патриком и Ойсином и на одной гаэльской поэме прошлого века.[80] Описанные в ней события […], как предполагается, относятся не к какой-либо конкретной эпохе, а к некоему неопределенному периоду, составленному из множества различных эпох, в котором разворачивается действие народных сказаний. Именно поэтому средневековые элементы здесь перемешаны с древними, как, собственно, и в поздних сказаниях о фениях. В гаэльских поэмах Ойсин посещает всего один остров, но в предании из “Silva Gadelica”[81] описывается “четыре рая”: северный остров, западный остров, южный остров и Адамов рай на востоке» (1912 г.).
The Wanderings of Oisin BOOK I
S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.
Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.
Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,
But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft bosom rose and fell.
S. Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.
Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn? she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.
'O pleasant woman, answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?
'My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.
'What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
'I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.
'Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?
'I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.
O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed, I cried,
'And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.
'O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.
Then she sighed gently, 'It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.
And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.
S. Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.
Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
'Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?
'Vex them no longer, Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.
But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
