Ральф Эмерсон – The Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson / Стихотворения (страница 43)
Or hide underground her alchemy.
Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,
Or dip thy paddle in the lake,
But it carves the bow of beauty there,
And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.
The wood is wiser far than thou;
The wood and wave each other know
Not unrelated, unaffied,
But to each thought and thing allied,
Is perfect Nature’s every part,
Rooted in the mighty Heart.
But thou, poor child! unbound, unrhymed,
Whence camest thou, misplaced, mistimed,
Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded?
Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded?
Who thee divorced, deceived and left?
Thee of thy faith who hath bereft,
And torn the ensigns from thy brow,
And sunk the immortal eye so low?
Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender,
Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender
For royal man;—they thee confess
An exile from the wilderness, —
The hills where health with health agrees,
And the wise soul expels disease.
Hark! in thy ear I will tell the sign
By which thy hurt thou may’st divine.
When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff,
Or see the wide shore from thy skiff,
To thee the horizon shall express
But emptiness on emptiness;
There lives no man of Nature’s worth
In the circle of the earth;
And to thine eye the vast skies fall,
Dire and satirical,
On clucking hens and prating fools,
On thieves, on drudges and on dolls.
And thou shalt say to the Most High,
“Godhead! all this astronomy,
And fate and practice and invention,
Strong art and beautiful pretension,
This radiant pomp of sun and star,
Throes that were, and worlds that are,
Behold! were in vain and in vain; —
It cannot be, – I will look again.
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Связал влюблённых, с эхом звук,
Ответ земли нашёл поток,
Плоть с духом ладит диалог97.
Напев Природы – верный тон,
Вкруг каждой руны рифм заслон:
На суше труд её, средь вод,
Иль тайну в землю уберёт.
Махать дубинкой не годится,
Веслом лезть в воду; там и тут
Дуга красивая родится,
А рифмы брызг дубы стряхнут98.
Ведь лес тебя куда мудрей,
С волной он дружит – не разлей:
Не чуждых и не врозь ничуть
Роднит любая мысль и суть;
Во всём Природа хороша,
И велика её Душа.
Бедняжка! Рифмы – цепь словес,
Не к месту ты, не впору влез, 
