In days gone by, when all of life's
Impressions offered me new thrills:
A murmurous grove, a maiden's eyes,
The nightingale in twilit hills....
When my sublimest aspirations
For freedom, glory, love and art
Instilled of holy inspiration,
So stirred the blood and spurred the heart,
Then were the days of bliss and promise
With wakeful anguish overcast,
As secretly a wicked Genius
Began to visit me unasked.
Grim were the meetings that we had:
His witching glance, the grins he stole,
The sting of every word he spat
Infused cold poison through my soul.
With indefatigable slander
He tempted Providence, and smiled.
Beauty he called a simple fancy,
And inspiration he reviled.
He doubted freedom, love, salvation
And turned on life a sneering gaze,
As there was naught in all Creation
He cared to bless with any praise.
В те дни, когда мне были новы
Все впечатленья бытия —
И взоры дев, и шум дубровы,
И ночью пенье соловья,—
Когда возвышенные чувства,
Свобода, слава и любовь
И вдохновенные искусства
Так сильно волновали кровь,
Часы надежд и наслаждений
Тоской внезапной осеня,
Тогда какой-то злобный гений
Стал тайно навещать меня.
Печальны были наши встречи:
Его улыбка, чудный взгляд,
Его язвительные речи
Вливали в душу хладный яд.
Неистощимой клеветою
Он провиденье искушал;
Он звал прекрасное мечтою;
Он вдохновенье презирал;
Не верил он любви, свободе;
На жизнь насмешливо глядел —
И ничего во всей природе
Благословить он не хотел.
«Lord, send your comfort / to him who, during summerТs scorching heat, / like some poor beggar past a garden, / along a hot road drags his weary feet, who gazes in passing across a fence / at the shades of trees, at valleysТ golden grain / and at the inaccessible coolness / of softly b...»
«When natureТs final hour strikes / and earthly matter has disintegrated, / the visible universe will be flooded. / In the waters GodТs face will be reflected.»
«Est in arundineis modulatio musica ripis. The sea is harmony. / Shapely in debate, all elements cohere. / Rustling in the river's reeds, / musical designs inhere. Imperturbable form is the outward sign / of nature's utter consonance. / Only our spectral liberty / imparts a sense of dis...»
«She was sitting on the floor / sorting letters which were old, / holding them before she threw them out / like ash gone cold. Her look was strange / while she held those pages she knew so well, / as if she were a soul which peered down / at its abandoned shell. So many irreversible eve...»