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Плач по ратнику. To Sylvia Beach. Сильвии Бич. Pennipomes twoguineaseach. Пенни за штучку — гинея за кучку. A portrait of the artist as an ancient mariner
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ПЛАЧ ПО РАТНИКУ
Как в недобрый час да пришла война,
Да пришла война, началась война,
Как пришла-началась
Война.
Как солдаты все на войну ушли,
На войну ушли, воевать ушли,
Воевать ушли
На войну.
Не вернуться им с поля бранного,
С поля бранного, окаянного,
С поля бранного
Им не встать.
А и некому обнимать меня,
Обнимать меня, целовать меня,
Белу грудь мою
Целовать.
(1918)
TO SYLVIA BEACH
(following the publication of Ulysses )
Who is Sylvia, what is she
That all our scribes commend her?
Yankee, young and brave is she
The west this grace did lend her,
That all books might published be.
Is she rich as she is brave
For wealth oft daring misses?
Throngs about her rant and rave
To subscribe forUlysses
But, having signed, they ponder grave.
Then to Sylvia let us sing
Her daring lies in selling.
She can sell each mortal thing
That's boring beyond telling.
To her let us buyers bring.
J. J.
after W. S.
(February 1922)
СИЛЬВИИ БИЧ
(по случаю публикации «Улисса» )
Кто Сильвия? И чем она
Всех авторов пленила?
Юна, прелестна и умна,
Талантом янки ей дана
Стихи печатать сила.
Рои людей, и голь и знать,
Вокруг нее столклися,
И рвут и мечут, чтоб достать
Подписку на «Улисса», —
А там уж нет дороги вспять.
Восславим Сильвию, друзья:
Купец она удалый:
Какая бы галиматья
К ней в руки ни попала,
Она издаст ее шутя!
Дж. Дж.
по У. Ш.
(Февраль 1922)
PENNIPOMES TWOGUINEASEACH
Sing a song of shillings
A guinea cannot buy,
Thirteen tiny pomikins
Bobbing in a pie.
The printer's pie was published
And the pomes began to sing
And wasn't Herbert Hughesius
As happy as a king!
(April 1932)
ПЕННИ ЗА ШТУЧКУ — ГИНЕЯ ЗА КУЧКУ
Вот песенка за шиллинг,
Не песенка, а клад.
В один пирог зашили
Тринадцать штук стишат.
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Стишата в тексте испеклись,
Запели: «Тру-ля-ля! »
И был Гербертус Хьюзиус
Счастливей короля!
(Апрель 1932)
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN ANCIENT MARINER
I met with a ancient scribelleer
As I scoured the pirates' sea
His sailes were alullt at nought coma null
Not raise the wind could he.
The bann of Bull, the sign of Sam
Burned crimson on his brow.
And I rocked at the rig of his bricabrac brig
With K. O. 11 on his prow
Shakefears & Coy danced poor old joy
And some of their steps were corkers
As they shook the last shekels like phantom freckels
His pearls that had poisom porkers
The gnome Norbert read rich bills of fare
The ghosts of his deep debauches
But there was no bibber to slip that scribber
The price of a box of matches
For all cried, Schuft! He has lost the Luft
That made his U. boat go
And what a weird leer wore that scribelleer
As his wan eye winked with woe.
He dreamed of the goldest sands uprolled
By the silviest Beach of Beaches
And to watch it dwindle gave him Kugelkopfschwindel
Till his eyeboules bust their stitches
His hold shipped seas with a drunkard's ease
And its deadweight grew and grew
While the witless wag still waived his flag
Jemmyrend's white and partir's blue.
His tongue stuck out with a dragon's drouth
For a sluice of schweppes and brandy
And but for the glows on his roseate nose
You'd have staked your goat he was Ghandi.
For the Yanks and Japs had made off with his traps!
So that stripped to the stern he clung
While, increase of a cross, an Albatross
Abaft his nape was hung.
(October 1932)
ПОРТРЕТ ХУДОЖНИКА КАК СТАРОГО МОРЕХОДА
Я долго плавал в пиратских морях,
Знавал и шторм и грозу.
И мне повстречался старый мудряк
С повязкой на левом глазу.
Его заклеймил Папаша Буль
И Дядюшка Сэм отверг.
Одиннадцатый год его солнце жжет
И звезд слепит фейерверк.
Ко-Ко и Пшикспир зовут на пир,
Брачные бубны гремят,
И мечут перлы скитальцы эрлы
Под ноги поросят.
Но чертов старик прыг на свой бриг,
Как сверчок на насест!
Плевать, если нет в кармане монет,
Чтоб уплатить за проезд.
Пускай лилипуты кричат: Капут!
Хватай негодяя! Пора
Как можно скорее вздернуть на рею
Этих пиратов пера!
Но Водиссей лишь ухо заткнет,
Припоминая с тоской
Лесок и Песок и голосок
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Дальней сильвены морской.
А бриг выделывал кренделя
Под флагом бел-голубым,
И чем выше флаг, тем больше фляг
Разгружалось под ним.
От жажды вываливая язык,
Твердя лишь один глагол,
Он стал тощее любых мощей
И, как Махатма, гол.
Ибо янки и япы, алчные лапы,
Его раздели всерьез,
И вместо рубашки на нем, бедняжке,
Нелепый повис «Альбатрос».
(Октябрь 1932)
EPILOGUE TO IBSEN'S GHOSTS
Dear quick, whose conscience buried deep
The grim old grouser has been salving,
Permit one spectre more to peep.
I am the ghost of Captain Alving.
Silenced and smothered by my past
Like the lewd knight in dirty linen
I struggle forth to swell the cast
And air a long suppressed opinion.
For muddling weddings into wakes
No fool could vie with Parson Manders.
I, though a dab at ducks and drakes,
Let gooseys serve or sauce their ganders.
My spouse bore me a blighted boy,
Our slavey pupped a bouncing bitch.
Paternity, thy name is joy
When the wise child knows which is which.
Both swear I am that selfsame man
By whom their infants were begotten.
Explain, fate, if you care and can
Why one is sound and one is rotten.
Olaf may plod his stony path
And live as chastely as Susanna
Yet pick up in some Turkish bath
His quantum sat of Pox Romana.
While Haakon hikes up primrose way,
Spreeing and gleeing as he goes,
To smirk upon his latter day
Without a pimple on his nose.
I gave it up I am afraid
But if I loafed and found it fun
Remember how a coyclad maid
Knows how to take it out of one.
The more I dither on and drink
My midnight bowl of spirit punch
The firmlier I feel and think
Friend Manders came too oft to lunch.
Since scuttling ship Vikings like me
Reck not to whom the blame is laid,
Y. M. C. A., V. D., T. B.
Or Harbormaster of Port Said.
Blame all and none and take to task
The harlot's lure, the swain's desire.
Heal by all means but hardly ask
Did this man sin or did his sire.
The shack's ablaze. That canting scamp,
The carpenter, has dished the parson.
Now had they kept their powder damp
Like me there would have been no arson.
Nay more, were I not all I was,
Weak, wanton, waster out and out,
There would have been no world's applause
And damn all to write home about.
(April 1934)
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