Стихи и эссе - Уистан Оден

4. The Pilgrim

No windows in his suburb lights that bedroom whereA little fever heard large afternoons at play:His meadows multiply; that mill, though, is not thereWhich went on grinding at the back of love all day.

Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have foundThe castle where his Greater Hallows are interned;For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets roundSome ruin where an evil heritage was burned.

Could he forget a child's ambition to be oldAll institutions where it learned to wash and lie,He'd tell the truth, for which he thinks himself too young,

That everywhere on the horizon of his sighIs now, as always, only waiting to be toldTo be his father's house and speak his mother tongue.

5. The City

In villages from which their childhood's cameSeeking Necessity, they had been taughtNecessity by nature is the same,No matter how or by whom it be sought.

The city, though, assumed no such belief,But welcomed each as if he came alone,The nature of Necessity like griefExactly corresponding to his own.

And offered them so many, every oneFound some temptation fit to govern him;And settled down to master the whole craft

Of being nobody; sat in the sunDuring the lunch-hour round the fountain rim;And watched the country kids arrive, and laughed.

6. The First Temptation

Ashamed to be the darling of his griefHe joined a gang of rowdy stories whereHis gift for magic quickly made him chiefOf all these boyish powers of the air;

Who turned his hungers into Roman food,The town's asymmetry into a park;All hours took taxis; any solitudeBecame his flattered duchess in the dark.

But if he wished for anything less grand,The nights came padding after him like wildBeasts that meant harm, and all the doors cried Thief;

And when Truth met him and put out her hand,He clung in panic to his tall beliefAnd shrank away like an ill-treated child.

7. The Second Temptation

The library annoyed him with its lookOf calm belief in being really there;He threw away a rival's silly book,And clattered panting up the spiral stair.

Swaying upon the parapet he cried:"O Uncreated Nothing, set me freeNow let Thy perfect be identified,Unending passion of the Night, with Thee."

And his long suffering flesh, that all the timeHad felt the simple cravings of the stoneAnd hoped to be rewarded for her climb,

Took it to be a promise when he spokeThat now at last she would be left alone,And plunged into the college quad, and broke.

8. The Third Temptation

He watched with all his organs of concernHow princes walk, what wives and children say;Reopened old graves in his heart to learnWhat laws the dead had died to disobey.

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:"All the arm-chair philosophers are false;To love another adds to the confusion;The song of pity is the Devil's Waltz."

And bowed to fate and was successful soThat soon he was the king of all the creatures:Yet, shaking in an autumn nightmare saw,

Approaching down a ruined corridor,A figure with his own distorted featuresThat wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.

9. The Tower

This is architecture for the odd;Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,So once, unconsciously, a virgin madeHer maiden head conspicuous to a god.

Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleepLost Love in abstract speculation burns,And exiled Will to politics returnsIn epic verse that lets its traitors weep.

Yet many come to wish their tower a well;For those who dread to drown of thirst may die,For those who see all become invisible:

Here great magicians caught in their own spellLong for a natural climate as they sigh"Beware of Magic" to the passer-by.

10. The Presumptuous

They noticed that virginity was neededTo trap the unicorn in every case,But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was as daring as they thought him,But his peculiar boyhood missed them all;The angel of a broken leg had taught himThe right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth aloneOn what, for them, was not compulsory:And stuck halfway to settle in some caveWith desert lions to domesticity;

Or turned aside to be absurdly brave,And met the ogre and were turned to stone.

11. The Average

His peasant parents killed themselves with toilTo let their darling leave a stingy soilFor any of those smart professions whichEncourage shallow breathing, and grow rich.

The pressure of their fond ambition madeTheir shy and country-loving child afraidNo sensible career was good enough,Only a hero could deserve such love.

So here he was without maps or supplies,A hundred miles from any decent town;The desert glared into his blood-shot eyes;

The silence roared displeasure: looking down,He saw the shadow of an Average ManAttempting the Exceptional, and ran.

12. Vocation

Incredulous, he stared at the amusedOfficial writing down his name amongThose whose request to suffer was refused.

The pen ceased scratching: though he came too lateTo join the martyrs, there was still a placeAmong the tempters for a caustic tongue

To test the resolution of the youngWith tales of the small failings of the great,And shame the eager with ironic praise

Though mirrors might be hateful for a while,Women and books should teach his middle ageThe fencing wit of an informal styleTo keep the silences at bay and cageHis pacing manias in a worldly smile.

13. The Useful

The over-logical fell for the witchWhose argument converted him to stone;Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich;The over-popular went mad alone,And kisses brutalized the over-male.

As agents their effectiveness soon ceased;Yet, in proportion as they seemed to fail,Their instrumental value was increasedTo those still able to obey their wish.

By standing stones the blind can feel their way,Wild dogs compel the cowardly to fight,Beggars assist the slow to travel light,And even madmen manage to conveyUnwelcome truths in lonely gibberish.

14. The Way

Fresh addenda are published every dayTo the encyclopedia of the Way.

Linguistic notes and scientific explanationsAnd texts for schools with modernized spelling and illustrations.

Now everyone knows the hero must choose the old horse,Abstain from liquor and sexual intercourse,

And look out for a stranded fish to be kind to:Now everyone thinks he could find, had he a mind to,

The way through the waste to the chapel in the rockFor a vision of the Triple Rainbow or the Astral Clock

Forgetting his information comes mostly from married menWho liked fishing and a flutter on the horses now and then

And how reliable can any truth be that is gotBy observing oneself and then just inserting a Not?

15. The Lucky

Suppose he'd listened to the erudite committee,He would have only found where not to look;Suppose his terrier when he whistled had obeyed,It would not have unearthed the buried city;Suppose he had dismissed the careless maid,The cryptogram would not have fluttered from the book.

"It was not I," he cried as, healthy and astounded,He stepped across a predecessor's skull;"A nonsense jingle simply came into my headAnd left the intellectual Sphinx dumbfounded;I won the Queen because my hair was red;The terrible adventure is a little dull."

Hence Failure's torment: "Was I doomed in any case,Or would I not have failed had I believed in Grace?"

16. The Hero

Не parried every question that they hurled:"What did the Emperor tell you?" "Not to push""What is the greatest wonder of the world?""The bare man Nothing in the Beggar's Bush."

Some muttered, "He is cagey for effect.A hero owes a duty to his fame.He looks too like a grocer for respect."Soon they slipped back into his Christian name.

The only difference that could be seenFrom those who'd never risked their lives at allWas his delight in details and routine.

For he was always glad to mow the grass,Pour liquids from large bottles into small,Or look at clouds through bits of colored glass.

17. Adventure

Others had swerved off to the left before,But only under protest from outside,Embittered robbers outlawed by the Law,Lepers in terror of the terrified.

Now no one else accused these of a crime;They did not look ill: old friends, overcome,Stared as they rolled away from talk and timeLike marbles out into the blank and dumb.

The crowd clung all the closer to conventionSunshine and horses, for the sane know whyThe even numbers should ignore the odd:

The Nameless is what no free people mention;Successful men know better than to tryTo see the face of their Absconded God.

18. The Adventurers

Spinning upon their central thirst like tops,They went the Negative Way toward the Dry;Be empty caves beneath an empty skyThey emptied out their memories like a slop

Which made a foul marsh as they dried to death,Where monsters bred who forced them to forgetThe lovelies their consent avoided; yetStill praising the Absurd with their last breath.

They seeded out into their miracles:The images of each grotesque temptationBecame some painter's happiest inspiration;

And barren wives and burning virgins cameTo drink the pure cold water of their wells,And wish for beaux and children in their name.

19. The Waters

Poet, oracle and witLike unsuccessful anglers byThe ponds of apperception sit,Baiting with the wrong requestThe vectors of their interest;At nightfall tell the angler's lie.

With time in tempest everywhere,To rafts of frail assumption clingThe saintly and the insincere;Enraged phenomena bear downIn overwhelming waves to drownBoth sufferer and suffering.

The waters long to hear our question putWhich would release their longed-for answer, but.

20. The Garden