Эдгар По – Ворон (страница 73)
Раскрыть себя в творении полней.
Раз у него есть дар, его работа
Известным с детства правилом жива:
«Не может в стих облечься то, чего ты
Глубоко в сердце не обрел сперва».
An Acrostic[133]
Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” – thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.[134]
Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breathe it less gently forth – and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love – was cured of all beside —
His folly – pride – and passion – for he died.
Акростих
Элизабет, не мучь меня напрасно:
Любовь мою ты гонишь слишком страстно,
Играя роль Ксантиппы[135] по примеру
Забытой поэтессы, злой не в меру.
Ах, не смотри так нежно, так влюбленно!
Боюсь я участи Эндимиона[136]:
Его Селена от любви лечила
Так пылко, что от жизни отучила.
Introduction[137]
Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been – a most familiar bird —
Taught me my alphabet to say —
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild-wood I did lie
A child – with a most knowing eye.
Succeeding years, too wild for a song,
Then roll’d like tropic storms along,
Where, tho’ the garish lights that fly
Dying along the troubled sky,
Lay bare, thro’ vistas thunder-riven,
The blackness of the general Heaven,
That very blackness yet doth fling
Light on the lightning’s silver wing.
For, being an idle boy lang syne,
Who read Anacreon, and drank wine,
I early found Anacreon rhymes
Were almost passionate sometimes —
And by strange alchemy of brain
His pleasures always turn’d to pain —
His naivete to wild desire —
His wit to love – his wine to fire —
And so, being young and dipt in folly
I fell in love with melancoly,
And used to throw my earthly rest
And quiet all away in jest —
I could not love except where Death
Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath —
Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny
Were stalking between her and me.
O, then the eternal Condor years
So shook the very Heavens on high,
With tumult as they thunder’d by;
I had no time for idle cares,
Thro’ gazing on the unquiet sky!
Or if an hour with calmer wing 
