Стихи и эссе - Уистан Оден

WORDS

A sentence uttered makes a world appearWhere all things happen as it says they do;We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear:Words have no word for words that are not true.

Syntactically, though, it must be clear;One cannot change the subject half-way through,Nor alter tenses to appease the ear:Arcadian tales are hard-luck stories too.

But should we want to gossip all the time,Were fact not fiction for us at its best,Or find a charm in syllables that rhyme,

Were not our fate by verbal chance expressed,As rustics in a ring-dance pantomimeThe Knight at some lone cross-roads of his quest?

Uncle Henry

When the Flyin’ Scot [138]fills for shootin’, I go southward,wisin’ after coffee, leavin’Lady Starkie.

Weady for some fun,visit yearly Wome, Damascus,in Mowocco look for fwesh a —— musin’ places.

Where I’ll find a fwend,don’t you know, a charmin’ creature,like a Gweek God and devoted:how delicious!

All they have they bwing,Abdul, Nino, Manfwed, Kosta:here’s to women for they bear suchlovely kiddies!

Adolescence

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters."

(King James Bible, Psalms 23:2) [139]

By landscape reminded once of his mother's figureThe mountain heights he remembers get bigger and biggerWith the finest of mapping pens he fondly tracesAll the family names on the familiar places.

In a green pasture straying, he walks by still waters;Surely a swan he seems to earth's unwise daughters,Bending a beautiful head, worshipping not lying,'Dear' the dear beak in the dear concha crying.

Under the trees the summer bands were playing;'Dear boy, be brave as these roots', he heard them saying:Carries the good news gladly to a world in danger,Is ready to argue, he smiles, with any stranger.

And yet this prophet, homing the day is ended,Receives odd welcome from the country he so defended:The band roars 'Coward, Coward', in his human fever,The giantess shuffles near, cries 'Deceiver'.

Are You There?

Each lover has some theory of his ownAbout the difference between the acheOf being with his love, and being alone:

Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and boneThat really stirs the senses, when awake,Appears a simulacrum of his own.

Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown;He cannot join his image in the lakeSo long as he assumes he is alone.

The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone,Are always up to mischief, though, and takeThe universe for granted as their own.

The elderly, like Proust, are always proneTo think of love as a subjective fake;The more they love, the more they feel alone.

Whatever view we hold, it must be shownWhy every lover has a wish to makeSome kind of otherness his own:Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.

Blues (For Hedli Anderson)

Ladies and gentlemen, sitting here,Eating and drinking and warming a chair,Feeling and thinking and drawing your breath,Who’s sitting next to you? It may be Death.

As a high-stepping blondie with eyes of blueIn the subway, on beaches, Death looks at you;And married or single or young or old,You’ll become a sugar daddy and do as you’re told.

Death is a G-man. You may think yourself smart,But he’ll send you to the hot-seat or plug you through the heart;He may be a slow worker, but in the endHe’ll get you for the crime of being born, my friend.

Death as a doctor has first-class degrees;The world is on his panel; he charges no fees;He listens to your chest, says — "You’re breathing. That’s bad.But don’t worry; we’ll soon see to that, my lad."

Death knocks at your door selling real estate,The value of which will not depreciate;It’s easy, it’s convenient, it’s old world. You’ll sign,Whatever your income, on the dotted line.

Death as a teacher is simply grand;The dumbest pupil can understand.He has only one subject and that is the Tomb;But no one ever yawns or asks to leave the room.

So whether you’re standing broke in the rain,Or playing poker or drinking champagne,Death’s looking for you, he’s already on the way,So look out for him tomorrow or perhaps today.

Detective Story

For who is ever quite without his landscape,The straggling village street, the house in trees,All near the church, or else the gloomy town house,The one with the Corinthian pillars, orThe tiny workmanlike flat: in any caseA home, the centre where the three or four thingsThat happen to a man do happen? Yes,Who cannot draw the map of his life, shade inThe little station where he meets his lovesAnd says good-bye continually, and mark the spotWhere the body of his happiness was first discovered?

An unknown tramp? A rich man? An enigma alwaysAnd with a buried past but when the truth,The truth about our happiness comes outHow much it owed to blackmail and philandering.

The rest's traditional. All goes to plan:The feud between the local common senseAnd that exasperating brilliant intuitionThat's always on the spot by chance before us;All goes to plan, both lying and confession,Down to the thrilling final chase, the kill.

Yet on the last page just a lingering doubt:That verdict, was it just? The judge's nerves,That clue, that protestation from the gallows,And our own smile… why yes…But time is always killed. Someone must pay forOur loss of happiness, our happiness itself.

(1936)

A New Age

So an age ended, and its last deliverer diedIn bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:The sudden shadow of a giant's enormous calfWould fall no more at dusk across their lawns outside.

They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubtA sterile dragon lingered to a natural death,But in a year the slot had vanished from the heath;A kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.

Only the sculptors and the poets were half-sad,And the pert retinue from the magician's houseGrumbled and went elsewhere. The vanquished powers were glad

To be invisible and free; without remorseStruck down the silly sons who strayed into their course,And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad.

[140]

Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier

To save your world you asked this man to die:Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

Base words are uttered

Base words are uttered only by the baseAnd can for such at once be understood,But noble platitudes:-ah, there's a caseWhere the most careful scrutiny is neededTo tell a voice that's genuinely goodFrom one that's base but merely has succeeded.

We're Late

Clocks cannot tell our time of dayFor what event to prayBecause we have no time, becauseWe have no time untilWe know what time we fill,Why time is other than time was.Nor can our question satisfyThe answer in the statue's eye:Only the living ask whose browMay wear the Roman laurel now;The dead say only how.

What happens to the living when we die?Death is not understood by Death; nor You, nor I.

The door

Out of steps the future of the poor,Enigmas, execuOut of steps tioners and rules,Her Majesty in a bad temper orThe red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.Great person eye it in the twilight forA past it might so carelessly let in,A widow with a missionary grin,The foaming inundation at a roar.We pile our all against it when afraid,And beat upon its panel when we die:By happening to be open ones, it madeEnormous Alice see in wonderlandThat waited for her in the sunshine, and,Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

No time

Clocks cannot tell our time of dayFor what event to pray,Because we have no time, becauseWe have no time untilWe know what time we fill,Why time is other than time was.Nor can our question satisfyThe answer in the statue’s eye.Only the living ask whose browMay wear the roman laurel now:The dead say only how.What happens to the living when they die?Death is not understood by death: nor you, nor I.

ЭССЕ

ПОЭЗИЯ И ПРАВДА[259]

Предисловие

Есть вещи, которые можно сделать только один раз. После Кейджа не имеет смысла поручать пианисту исполнение тишины любой продолжительности звучания. После У.Х.Одена не стоит тратить время и силы на то, чтобы писать прозой ненаписанное стихотворение.

Стихотворение? Конечно. И не только потому, что оно помещено в стихотворный сборник (W.H.Auden "Collected Poems", edited Edward Mendelson, 1991). Членение на пятьдесят главок (строф?), синтаксические параллелизмы, риторические вопросы и прочие штучки намекают, что перед нами, если не верлибр, то, во всяком случае, версэ — верлибр со сверхдлинной строкой. Значит, стихотворение все-таки написано? Да, стихотворение о том, что невозможно написать стихотворение, написанное тысячами поэтов десятки тысяч раз, — стихотворение о том, что "я тебя люблю". Почему? Потому что слово, ограненное поэтом, преломляет мысль во множестве направлений и утрачивает способность быть правдивым. "Dichtung und Wahrheit" ("Поэзия и правда") — название заимствовано Оденом у Гете, который в своей одноименной автобиографии тоже не очень-то стремился к достоверности.

Да и какая может быть достоверность, если мы имеем дело с поэтом? В чем она? Разве в том, что адресат ненаписанного стихотворения, молодой аспирант, действительно приехал к Одену, но не ответил на его так изысказанно выраженное чувство? И стихотворение о Доброй Даме, фрау Минне, покровительнице влюбленных немцев, действительно было написано, причем — Оден провел нас и здесь! — написано раньше, чем "Поэзия и правда". И получилось оно, как поэт и грозился в конце "ненаписанного стихотворения", не слишком приятным: "Толстозадая, со свиными сосками и совиной головой, Та, для которой была ритуально пролита первая невинная кровь… Кто же, хотелось бы знать, выгнал нас на ее манеж?"