Стихотворения

Набоков Владимир Владимирович

460. «When life is torture, when hope is a traitor…» ^{*}

Die Gleichm"ossigkeit des Loufes der Zeit in allen K"opfen beweist mehr, als irgend etwas, dass wir Alle in denselben Traum versenkt sind, ja dass es Ein Wesen ist, welches ihrt tr"aumt. [20]

Schopenhauer, Porergo, II, 29.

When life is torture, when hope is a traitor, when in the battle my soul must surrender, then daily, nightly I lower my eyelids, and all is revealed in a strange flash of splendor. Like nights in autumn, life's darkness seems denser between the distant and thunderless flashes. Alone the starlight is endlessly friendly — the stars that sparkle through golden bright lashes. And all this lambent abyss is so limpid, so close is the sky to my spirit's desire, that, straight out of time into timelessness peering, your throne I discern, empyrean fire. And there the altar of all creation stands still and smokes in a glory of roses. Eternity dreams of itself, as the smoke-wreaths vibrate with the forces and forms it composes. And all that courses down cosmic channels, and every ray of the mind or of matter is but your reflection, empyrean fire, dreams, only dreams that flit by and scatter. And in that wind of sidereal fancies I float like vapor, now dimmer, now brighter — and thanks to my vision, and thanks to oblivion, with ease I breathe, and life's burden is lighter. <Осень 1943>

20

Равномерность

течения времени во всех головах доказывает более, чем что-либо другое, что мы все погружены в один и тот же сон; более того, что все видящие этот сон являются единым существом. (нем.) — Ред.

461. THE SWALLOW ^{*}

When prying idly into Nature I am paticularly fond of watching the arrow of a swallow over the sunset of a pond. See — there it goes, and skims, and glances: the alien element, I fear, roused from its glassy sleep might capture black lightning quivering so near. There — once again that fearless shadow over a frowning ripple ran. Have we not here the living image of active poetry in man — of something leading me, banned mortal, to venture where I dare not stop — striving to scoop from a forbidden mysterious element one drop? <Осень 1943>

Фёдор Тютчев ^{*}

462. NIGHTFALL ^{*}

Down from her head the earth has rolled the low sun like a redhot ball. Down went the evening's peaceful blaze and seawaves have absorbed it all. Heavy and near the sky had seemed. But now the stars are rising high, they glow and with their humid heads push up the ceiling of the sky. The river of the air between heaven and earth now fuller flows. The breast is ridded of the heat and breaths in freedom and repose. And now there goes through Nature's veins a liquid shiver, swift and sweet, as though the waters of a spring had come to touch her burning feet. <1944>

463. TEARS ^{*}

O lacrimarum fons.

Gray.

Friends, with my eyes I love caressing the purple of a flashing wine, nor do I scorn the fragrant ruby of clustered fruit that leaves entwine. I love to look around when Nature seems as it were immersed in May; when bathed in redolence she slumbers and smiles throughout her dreamy day. I love to see the face of Beauty flushed with the air of Spring that seeks softly to toy with silky ringlets or deepen dimples on her cheeks. But all voluptuous enchantments, lush grapes, rich roses — what are you compared to tears, that sacred fountain, that paradisal morning dew! Therein divinest beams are mirrored, and in those burning drops they break, and breaking — what resplendent rainbows upon Life's thunderclouds they make! As soon as mortal eyes thou touchest, with wings, Angel of Tears, the world dissolves in mist, and lo! a skyful of Seraph faces is unfurled. <Осень 1944>

464. THE JOURNEY ^{*}

Soft sand comes up to our horses' shanks as we ride in the darkening day and the shadows of pines have closed their ranks: all is shadow along our way. In denser masses the black trees rise. what a comfortless neighborhood! Grim night like a beast with a hundred eyes peers out of the underwood. <Осень 1944>

465. SILENTIUM! ^{*}

Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal the way you dream, the things you feel. Deep in your spirit let them rise akin to stars in crystal skies that set before the night is blurred: delight in them and speak no word. How can a heart expression find? How should another know your mind? Will he discern what quickens you? A thought once uttered is untrue. Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred: drink at the source and speak no word. Live in your inner self alone within your soul a world has grown, the magic of veiled thoughts that might be blended by the outer light, drowned in the noise of day, unheard… take in their song and speak no word. <Январь 1944>

466. LAST LOVE ^{*}

Love at the closing of our days is apprehensive and very tender. Glow brighter, brighter, farewell rays of one last love in its evening splendor. Blue shade takes half the world away: through western clouds alone some light is slanted. О tarry,

О tarry, declining day, enchantment, let me stay enchanted. The blood runs thinner, yet the heart remains as ever deep and tender. О last belated love, thou art a blend of joy and of hopeless surrender. <Январь 1944>

467. DUSK ^{*}

Now the ashen shadows mingle, tints are faded, sounds remote. Life has dwindled to a single vague reverberating note. In the dusk I hear the humming of a moth I cannot see. Whence is this oppression coming? I'm in all, and all's in me. Gloom so dreamy, gloom so lulling, flow into my deepest deep, flow, ambrosial and dulling, steeping everything in sleep. With oblivion's obscuration fill my senses to the brim, make me taste obliteration, in this dimness let me dim. <Осень 1944>

468. THE ABYSS ^{*}

When sacred Night sweeps heavenward, she takes the glad, the winsome day, and folding it, rolls up its golden carpet that had been spread over an abyssmal pit. Gone vision-like is the external world, and man, a homeless orphan, has to face in utter helplessness, naked, alone, the blackness of immeasurable space. Upon himself he has to lean; with mind abolished, thought unfathered, in the dim depths of his soul he sinks, for nothing comes from outside to support or limit him. All life and brightness seem an ancient dream — while in the very substance of the night, unravelled, alien, he now perceives a fateful something that is his by right. <1944>

469. AUTUMN ^{*}

When Autumn has just come, there is most brief a lull: brief but divine. All day 'tis like some precious prism, and limpidly the evenings shine. Where lusty sickles swung and corn-ears bent the plain is empty now: wider it seems. Alone a silky filament across the idle furrow gleams. The airy void, now birdless, is revealed, but still remote is the first whirl of snow; and stainless skies in mellow blueness flow upon the hushed reposing field. <Январь 1944>