Стихотворения

Набоков Владимир Владимирович

450. MY NATIVE LAND ^{*}

If I do love my land, strangely I love it: 'tis something reason cannot cure. Glories of war I do not covet, but neither peace proud and secure, not the mysterious past and dim romances can spur my soul to pleasant fancies. And still I love thee — why I hardly know: I love thy fields so coldly meditative, native dark swaying woods and native rivers that sea-like foam and flow. In a clattering cart I love to travel on country roads: watching the rising star, yearning for sheltered sleep, my eyes unravel the trembling lights of sad hamlets afar. I also love the smoke of burning stubble, vans huddled in the prairie night; corn on a hill crowned with the double grace of twin birches gleaming white. Few are the ones who feel the pleasure of seeing barns bursting with grain and hay, well-thatched cottage-roofs made to measure and shutters carved and windows gay. And when the evening dew is glistening, long may I hear the festive sound of rustic dancers stamping, whistling with drunkards clamoring around. <Ноябрь 1941>

451. THE TRIPLE DREAM ^{*}

I dreamt that with a bullet in my side in a hot gorge of Daghestan I lay. Deep was the wound and steaming, and the tide of my life-blood ebbed drop by drop away. Alone I lay amid a silent maze of desert sand and bare cliffs rising steep, their tawny summits burning in the blaze that burned me too; but lifeless was my sleep. And in a dream I saw the candle-flame of a gay supper in the land I knew; young women crowned with flowers.... And my name on their light lips hither and thither flew. But one of them sat pensively apart, not joining in the light-lipped gossiping, and there alone, God knows what made her heart, her young heart dream of such a hidden thing.... For in her dream she saw a gorge, somewhere in Daghestan, and knew the man who lay there on the sand, the dead man, unaware of steaming wound and blood ebbing away. <Ноябрь 1941>

452. THE ANGEL ^{*}

An angel was crossing the pale vault of night, and his song was as soft as his flight, and the moon and the stars and the clouds in a throng stood enthralled by this holy song. He sang of the bliss of the innocent shades in the depths of celestial glades; he sang of the Sovereign Being, and free of guile was his eulogy. He carried a soul in his arms, a young life to the world of sorrow and strife, and the young soul retained the throb of that song — without words, but vivid and strong. And tied to this planet long did it pine full of yearnings dimly divine, and our dull little ditties could never replace songs belonging to infinite space. <Весна 1946>

453. THE SAIL ^{*}

Amid the blue haze of the ocean a sail is passing, white and frail. What do you seek in a far country? What have you left at home, lone sail? The billows play, the breezes whistle, and rhythmically creaks the mast. Alas, you seek no happy future, nor do you flee a happy past. Below the mirrored azure brightens, above the golden rays increase — but you, wild rover, pray for tempests, as if in tempests there were peace. <Весна 1946>

454. THE ROCK ^{*}

The little golden cloud that spent the night upon the breast of yon great rock, next day rose early and in haste pursued its way eager to gambol in the azure light. A humid trace, however, did remain within a wrinkle of the rock. Alone and wrapt in thought, the old gentle stone sheds silent tears above the empty plain. <Весна 1946>

455. IMITATION OF HEINE ^{*}

A pine there stands in the northern wilds alone on a barren bluff, swaying and dreaming and clothed by the snow in a cloak of the finest fluff — dreaming a dream of a distant waste, a country of sun-flushed sands where all forlorn on torrid cliff a lovely palm tree stands. <Весна 1946>

456. THANKSGIVING ^{*}

For everything, for everything,

О Lord, I thank Thee — for the secret pangs of passions, the poisoned fangs of kisses, the bitter taste of tears; for the revenge of foes and for the calumny of friends, and for the waste of a soul's fervor burning in a desert, and for all things that have deceived me here. But please, О Lord, henceforth let matters be arranged in such a way that I need not keep thanking Thee much longer <Ноябрь 1946>

457. THE SKY AND THE STARS ^{*}

Fair is the evening sky, clear are the stars in the distance, as clear as the joy of an infant. Oh, why can't I tell myself even in thought: The stars are as clear as my joy! What is your trouble — people might query. Just this is my trouble, excellent people: the sky and the stars are the stars and the sky, whereas I am a man. People are envious of one another. I, on the contrary, — only the beautiful stars do I envy, only to be in their place do I wish. <1947>

458. THE WISH ^{*}

Open the door of my prison, let me see the daylight again, give me a black-eyed maiden and a horse with a jet-black mane. Over the wide blue grassland let that courser carry me, and just once, just a little closer, let me glance at that alien portion — that life and that liberty. Give me a leaky sailboat with a bench of half-rotten wood and a well-worn sail all hoary from the tempests it has withstood. Then I shall launch on my voyage, friendless and therefore free, and shall have my fling in the open and delight in the mighty struggle with the savage whim of the sea. Give me a lofty palace with an arbour all around where amber grapes would ripen and the broad shade fleck the ground. Let an ever-purling fountain among marble pillars play and lull me to sleep and wake me in a halo of heavenly visions and the cool dust of its spray. <1947>

Афанасий Фет ^{*}

459. ALTER EGO ^{*}

As a lily that looks at itself in a stream so my very first song was your mirrored dream. But whose was the triumph? Who gave and who took? Was it brook from blossom or blossom from brook? Your childish soul could so easily guess the thoughts I was inwardly moved to express. Though I live without you by a dreary decree, we are one — for nothing can part you and me. The grass on your grave in a distant clime is here in my heart growing greener with time. When I happen to glance at the stars, then I know that together like gods we had looked at their glow. Love has words of its own, these words cannot die. Our singular case special judges will try: in the crowd they will notice us right from the start — for as one we will come — we whom nothing can part. <Осень 1943>