Madison Julius Cawein (Мэдисон Джулиус Кавейн)

Hylas

    The cuckoo-sorrel paints with pink
    The green page of the meadow-land
    Around a pool where thrushes drink
    As from a hollowed hand.
    A hill, long-haired with leathered grass
    Combed by the strong incessant wind,
    Looks down upon the pool's pale glass
    Like some old hag gone blind,
    And on a forest grey of beech,
    Reserved, mysterious, deep and wild,
    That whispers to itself; its speech
    Like some old man's turned child.

    A forest, through which something speaks
    Authoritative things to man,
    A something that o'erawed the Greeks,
    The universal Pan.
    And through the forest falls a stream
    Babbling of immemorial things
    The myth, that haunts it like a dream,
    The god, that in it sings.

    And here it was, when I was young,
    Across this meadow, sorrel-stained,
    To this green place where willows wrung
    Wild hands, and beech-trees strained
    Their mighty strength with winds of spring,
    That clutched and tore the wild-witch hair
    Of yon gaunt hill, I heard them sing,
    The hylas hidden there.

    The slant gale played soft fugues of rain,
    With interludes of sun between,
    Where windflowers wove a twinkling chain
    Through mosses grey and green.
    From every coign of woodland peered
    The starry eyes of Loveliness,
    As reticently now she neared
    Or stood in shy distress.

    Then I remembered all the past
    The ancient ships, the unknown seas;
    And him, like some huge, knotted mast,
    My master Herakles.
    Again I saw the port, the wood
    Of Cyzicus; the landing there;
    The pool among the reeds; and, nude,
    The nymphs with long green hair,
    That swarmed to clasp me when I stooped
    To that grey pool as clear as glass,
    And round my body wrapped and looped
    Their hair, like water-grass.

    Hylas, the Argonaut, the lad
    Beloved of Herakles, was I
    Again with joy my heart grew sad,
    Dreaming on days gone by.
    Again I felt the drowning pain,
    The kiss that slew me long ago;
    The dripping arms drew down again,
    And love cried all its woe.

    The new world vanished! 'Twas the old.
    Once more I knew the Mysian shore,
    The haunted pool, the wood, the cold
    Wild wind from sea and moor.
    And then a voice went by; 'twas his,
    The Demigod's who sought me: but
    Cold mouths had closed mine with a kiss
    And both mine eyes were shut....

    And had the hylas ceased to sing?
    Or what? For, lo! I stood again
    Between the hill and wood; and Spring
    Gazed at me through the rain.
    And in her gaze I seemed to see
    This was a dream she'd dreamed, not I;
    A figment of a memory
    That I had felt go by.

1. Night and Storm at Gloucester
2. The Festival of the Aisne
3. The Criminal
4. Foreword to Weeds by the Wall
5. Solstice

Louise Guiney (Луиза Гвини) Hylas ("JAR in arm, they bade him rove")

Распечатать (To print)

Количество обращений к стихотворению: 1671

Последние стихотворения

To English version