Рэй Дуглас Брэдбери – The Haunted Computer and the Android Pope (страница 5)

That laugh, that cry which says: Begin again,

So all’s reborn, begun!

Now hear this, Eden’s child,

Remember in thy green Earth heaven,

All beauty-shod:

Joy is the grace we say to God.

They Have Not Seen the Stars

They have not seen the stars,

Not one, not one

Of all the creatures on this world

In all the ages since the sands first touched the wind

Not one, not one,

No beast of all the beasts has stood

On meadowland or plain or hill

And known the thrill of looking at those fires;

Our soul admires what they, oh, they, have never known.

Five billion years have flown in turnings of the spheres

But not once in all those years

Has lion, dog, or bird that sweeps the air

Looked there, oh, look. Looked there, ah God, the stars;

Oh, look, look there!

It is as if all time had never been,

Or universe or sun or moon or simple morning light.

Their tragedy was mute and blind, and so remains. Our sight?

Yes, ours? To know now what we are.

But think of it, then choose—now, which?

Born to raw Earth, inhabiting a scene

And all of it, no sooner viewed, erased, gone blind

As if these miracles had never been.

Vast circlings of sounding light, of fire and frost,

And all so quickly seen then quickly lost?

Or us, in fragile flesh, with God’s new eyes

That lift and comprehend and search the skies?

We watch the seasons drifting in the lunar tide

And know the years, remembering what’s died.

Oh, yes, perhaps some birds some nights

Have felt Orion rise and tuned their flights

And turned southward

Because star-charts were printed in their sweet genetic dreams—

Or so it seems.

But, see? But really see and know?

And, knowing, want to touch those fires,

To grow until the mighty brow of man Lamarckian-tall

Knocks earthquakes, striking moon,

Then Mars, then Saturn’s rings;

And, growing, hope to show

All other beasts just how

To fly with dreams instead of ancient wings.

So, think on this: we’re first! the only ones

Whom God has honored with his rise of suns.

For us as gifts Aldebaran, Centauri, homestead Mars.

Wake up, God says. Look there. Go fetch.

The stars. Oh, Lord, much thanks. The stars!

This Attic Where the Meadow Greens

This attic where the meadow greens

Now keeps itself a world between two worlds,

One world of weather, one of blood and dream.

Its architectural scheme there high above

Was to make heaps and sprawls of silent time

Abide it there to know a slower beat

Than any river street or dogprint lawn.

Here yawns lost yestermorn

When loss and death were yet unborn

And fear, locked in the womb, stopped up its breath

To let it whisper forth some other year.