«Человек, первым открывший Бродского Западу». Беседы с Джорджем Клайном - Синтия Л. Хэвен

with him the sea.

Chalk cliffs now tower in sleep above the sands.

This island sleeps, embraced by lonely dreams,

and every garden now is triple-barred.

Pines, maples, birches, firs, and spruce – all sleep.

On mountain slopes steep mountain-streams and paths

now sleep. Foxes and wolves. Bears in their dens.

The snow drifts high at burrow-entrances.

All the birds sleep. Their songs are heard no more.

Nor is the crow’s hoarse caw. At night the owl’s

dark hollow laugh is quenched. The open fields

of England now are stilled. A clear star flames.

The mice are penitent. All creatures sleep.

The dead lie calmly in their graves and dream.

The living, in the oceans of their gowns,

sleep – each alone – within their beds. Or two

by two. Hills, woods, and rivers sleep. All birds

and beasts now sleep – nature alive and dead.

But still the snow spins white from the black sky.

There, high above men’s heads, all are asleep.

The angels sleep. Saints – to their saintly shame —

have quite forgotten this our anxious world.

Dark Hell-fires sleep, and glorious Paradise.

No one goes forth from home at this bleak hour.

Even God has gone to sleep. Earth is estranged.

Eyes do not see, and ears perceive no sound.

The Devil sleeps. Harsh enmity has fallen

asleep with him on snowy English fields.

All horsemen sleep[199]. And the Archangel, with

his trumpet. Horses, softly swaying, sleep.

And all the cherubim, in one great host

embracing, doze beneath St. Paul’s high dome.

John Donne has sunk in sleep. His verses sleep.

His images, his rhymes, and his strong lines

fade out of view. Anxiety and sin,

alike grown slack, sleep in his syllables.

And each verse whispers to its next of kin,

‘Move on a bit.’ But each stands so remote

from Heaven’s Gates, so poor, so pure and dense,

that all seems one. All are asleep. The vault

austere of iambs soars in sleep. Like guards,

the trochees stand and nod to left and right.

The vision of Lethean waters sleeps.

The poet’s fame sleeps soundly at its side.

All trials, all sufferings, are sunk in sleep.

And vices sleep. Good lies in Evil’s arms.

The prophets sleep. The bleaching snow seeks out,

through endless space, the last unwhitened spot.

All things have lapsed in sleep. The swarms of books,

the streams of words, cloaked in oblivion’s ice,

sleep soundly. Every speech, each speech’s truth,

is sleeping. Linked chains, sleeping scarcely clank.

All soundly sleep: the saints, the Devil, God.

Their wicked and their faithful servants. Snow

alone sifts, rustling, on the darkened roads.

And there are no more sounds in all the world.

But hark! Do you not hear in the chill night

a sound of sobbing, whisperings of fear?

There someone stands, disclosed to winter’s blast,

and weeps. There someone stands in the dense gloom.

His voice is thin. His voice is needle-thin,

yet without tread. And he in solitude

swims through the falling snow – cloaked in cold mist

that stiches night to dawn. The lofty dawn.

‘Whose sobs are those? My angel, is it you?

Do you await my coming, there alone

beneath the snow? Walking – without my love —

in darkness home? Do you cry in the gloom?’

No answer. – ’Is it you, o cherubim,

whose muted tears put me in mind

of some sepulchral choir? Have you resolved

to quit my sleeping church? Is it not you?’

No answer. – ‘Is it you, o Paul? Your voice

most certainly is coarsened by stern speech.

Have you not bowed your grey head in the gloom

to weep?’ But only silence makes reply.

‘Is that the Hand which looms up everywhere

to shield a grieving glance in the deep dark?

Is it not thou, Lord? No, my thoughts run wild.

And yet how lofty is the voice that weeps.’

No answer. Silence. – ‘Gabriel, have you

not blown your trumpet to the roar of hounds?

Why did I stand alone with open eyes

while horsemen saddled their swift steeds? Yet each

thing sleeps. Enveloped in huge gloom, the Hounds

of Heaven race in packs. O Gabriel,

do you not sob, encompassèd about

by winter dark, alone, with your great horn?’

‘No, it is I, your soul, John Donne, who speaks.

I grieve alone upon the heights of Heaven,

because my labors did bring forth to life

feelings and thoughts as heavy as stark chains.

Bearing this burden, you could yet fly up

past those dark sins and passions, mounting higher.

You were a bird, your people did you see

in every place, as you did soar above

their sloping roofs. And you did glimpse the seas,

and distant lands, and Hell – first in your dreams,

then waking. You did see a jewelled Heaven

set in the wretched frame of men’s low lusts.

And you saw Life: your Island was its twin.

And you did face the ocean at its shores.

The howling dark stood close at every hand.

And you did soar past God, and then drop back,

for this harsh burden would not let you rise

to that high vantage point from which this world

seems naught but ribboned rivers and tall towers —

that point from which, to him who downward stares,