Читать книгу West-Eastern Divan - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Страница 5

Twenty years I let go past,

Joying in what life provides;

A train, each lovely as the last,

Years' fair as 'neath the Barmecides.

I. HEJIRA

NORTH and West and South up-breaking!

Thrones are shattering, Empires quaking;

Fly thou to the untroubled East,

There the patriarchs' air to taste!

What with love and wine and song

Chiser's fount will make thee young.

There, 'mid things pure and just and true,

The race of man I would pursue

Back to the well-head primitive,

Where still from God did they receive

Heavenly lore in earthly speech,

Nor beat the brain to pass their reach.

Where ancestors were held in awe,

Each alien worship banned by law;

In nonage-bounds I am gladly caught –

Broad faith be mine and narrow thought;

As when the word held sway, and stirred

Because it was a spoken word.

Where shepherds haunt would I be seen,

And rest me in oases green;

When with the caravan I fare,

Shawl, coffee, musk, my chapman's ware,

No pathway would I leave untraced

To the city from the waste.

And up and down the rough rock ways

My comfort, Hafiz, be thy lays,

When the guide enchantingly,

From his mule-back seat on high,

Sings, to rouse the stars, or scare

The lurking robber in his lair.

In bath or inn my thought would be,

Holy Hafiz, still of thee;

Or when the veil a sweetheart lifts

From amber locks in odorous drifts;

Ay, whispered loves of poet fire

Even the Houris to desire!

Would you envy him for this,

Or bring despite upon his bliss,

Know that words of poets rise

To the gate of Paradise,

Hover round, knock light, implore

Heavenly life for evermore.

II. PLEDGES OF BLESSING

FROM a cornelian Talisman

Glad prosperous days the faithful gain;

If on an onyx ground it rest

To lips devout let it be pressed!

All that is ill away 'twill chase,

It shields you and it shields the place;

If the engraven word proclaim

With pure intention Allah's name,

To love and deed it will inflame;

And women, more than others can,

Will vantage by the Talisman.

Like symbols, but on paper set

By pen-craft, form the Amulet;

No narrow limit here will hem

The scribe as with the graven gem,

And pious souls may thus rejoice

In longer verses of their choice;

Such papers round the neck men wear

Devoutly as a scapular.

Behind the Inscription no hid meanings lie;

It is itself – the sentence tells you all;

And this once read will straightway make you call

With glad assent – " Tis I that say it, I."

Abraxas I will seldom bring!

Here chiefly the distorted thought

Some gloomy madness has begot

Would pass for the divinest thing.

If things absurd I speak, believe

Tis an Abraxas that I give.

A Signet-ring's design craves studious care;

The highest sense in narrowest room must fit;

Yet if you plant a true idea there,

Graven stands the word and scarce you think of it.

III. FREEDOM OF SPIRIT

MINE be the saddle still, to ride

While you in hut or tent abide!

And gay I gallop through wilds afar,

Nought o'er my bonnet save the star.

The stars were appointed by His voice,

Your guides over land and sea,

That the heart within you may rejoice

And your glance still heavenward be.

IV. TALISMANS

GOD'S very own the Orient!

God's very own the Occident!

The North land and the Southern land

Rest in the quiet of His hand.

Justice apportioned to each one

Wills He Who is the Just alone.

Name all His hundred names, and then

Be this name lauded high! Amen.

Error would hold me tangled, yet

Thou knowest to free me from the net.

Whether I act or meditate

Grant me a way that shall be straight.

If earthly things possess my mind

Through these some higher gain I find;

Not blown abroad like dust, but driven

Inward, the spirit mounts toward heaven.

In every breath we breathe two graces share –

The indraught and the outflow of the air;

That is a toil, but this refreshment brings;

So marvellous are our life's comminglings.

Thank God when thou dost feel His hand constrain,

And thank when He releases Thee again.

V. FOUR GRACES

THAT glad of heart the Arab should

Roam his wild spaces o'er,

Hath Allah for the general good

Granted him graces four.

The turban first, a braver gear

Than crowns of Emperors old;

And, for his dwelling everywhere,

A tent to raise or fold.

A sword that surelier can defend

Than crag or turret-height,

A little song, which maids attend

For wisdom or delight.

If from her shawl my singing spell

Draw flowers that fall my way,

What is her own she knows right well,

And still is kind and gay.

With flowers and fruits the sense to please,

I deck the board for you,

And would you add moralities,

I give them gathered now.

VI. CONFESSION

WHAT is hard to cover? Fire!

Flame, the monster, will betray

By night its presence, smoke by day.

Hard to hide is love's desire;

However hushed and close it lies,

Love will leap forth from the eyes.

Hardest is a song to hide;

Under bushel 'twill not bide;

Did the poet sing it new,

It has pierced him through and through;

If pranked with pen, his eye approve it,

He would have the whole world love it,

Aloud he reads it joyously

To all – to plague or edify.

VII. ELEMENTS

SAY, from how many an element

True song should seek and suck its food,

Song, layfolks listen to content,

And masters hear in gladdest mood?

Love, past all things of common rate,

Be this our theme when we shall sing!

If love the verse should penetrate

The sweeter will its music ring.

Then must the meeting glasses clink,

While gleams the red wine circling round!

For those who love, for those who drink,

With smiles the fairest wreaths are wound.

And next the clash of arms I name,

The trumpet's blare must sound abroad.

So shall the hero, while in flame

Leaps victory, know himself a god.

Last hate is indispensable,

Ay, many a thing true poets hate;

Shall he who beauty loves, as well

Foul things and loathsome tolerate?

Primeval matter – if the singer

But mix and mingle these, the four,

Like Hafiz he, true joyance-bringer,

Shall quicken folk for evermore.

VIII. CREATION AND ANIMATION

JACK ADAM was a clod of clay

God shaped a human creature;

Yet from Earth's womb he brought away

Much dress in form and feature.

The Elohim breathed into his nose

The very finest spirit;

He took a sneezing fit, and rose

More like a man of merit.

And yet in brawn and brain and bone

He still was half a lump, sir,

Till Noah for the simpleton

Found his true cure – the bumper.

Betimes the lump perceived a glow,

Well wetted with the potion;

The barm began to stir the dough

Which put itself in motion.

Thus, Hafiz, may thy singing sweet

And thy devout example,

Lead us, while clinking glasses meet,

Into our Maker's temple.

IX. PHENOMENON

WHEN the dark rain-drift

Phoebus has wooed,

Springeth a rainbow swift,

Rising bright-hued.

There o'er the misty height

Spans the arch now,

What if the bow be white,

Yet 'tis heaven's bow.

Greybeard, with clouds in sight,

Blithe shouldst thou prove;

What if thy hair be white,

Yet shalt thou love!

X. A THING OF BEAUTY

WHAT motley shows are those that bind

The heavens with yonder height,

Through mists of morning ill defined,

That half defeat the sight?

Are they the Vizier's tents displayed,

Where his loved women bide?

Are they the festal carpets laid

For one most dear – his bride?

Scarlet and white, mixed, freckled, streaked –

Vision of perfect worth!

Hafiz, how comes thy Shiraz thus

To greet the cloudy North?

Yes, neighbour poppies spreading far,

A cordial, various band,

As if to scorn the god of war,

Kindly they robe the land.

So let the sage who serves our earth

With flowers still make it gay,

And, as this morn, the sun shine forth

To light them on my way.

XI. DISCORDANCE

UPON the left beside the rill

Sits Cupid fluting,

The fields to right wild clamours fill,

Mars' trumpet bruiting;

To those pure notes of soft accost

The ear's beguiled,

But all the bloom of song is lost

In uproar wild;

Warbles the flute with liquid strain,

While booms war's thunder;

If sudden frenzy seize my brain,

What cause for wonder?

Louder the flute notes on the left,

The trump still brays;

Distract I roam, of wits bereft;

Should this amaze?

XII. THE PAST IN THE PRESENT

LILY and rose by morn bedewed

Are blooming in the garden near;

Soft with low-growing underwood

The rocks climb upward to the rear;

And, girdled with its belt of trees,

A feudal castle crowns the height

Where curves its marge by soft degrees,

Till with the valley it unite.

And every air some odour brings

As when love ached in those old days,

Those dawnings when my psaltery-strings

Contended with the morning's rays,

There where from greenwood shades would start,

Rounded and full, the hunters' chant,

To quicken and to fire the heart,

Accordant to its wish or want.

Ever the woods fresh leaves unfold!

With these your soul rejoicing fill;

Pleasures that were your own of old

May be enjoyed through others still;

No man will then complain of us

Care for ourselves was all we had;

Through all life's process various

You must have virtue to be glad.

And with such winding of my lay,

Hafiz, once more we hear thy voice;

'Tis meet in each concluded day

With the rejoicing to rejoice.

XIII. SONG AND PLASTIC ART

FROM clay wherein his fingers wrought

Fair shapes the Greek may fashion,

And in the son his hand begot

Rejoice with rising passion.

Our hands in the Euphrates stream

Have their delighted play;

The wandering mass, that fleets and flows,

Yields as we sway and stray.

If thus the soul's hot brand be cooled

Then song shall echo clear;

Water, poet's pure hand ruled,

Rounds to a crystal sphere.

XIV. AUDACITY

WHAT spring of healing has been found

For man, where'er he be?

All with glad heart attend a sound

Shapen to harmony.

Hence with whate'er embroils your way!

Nor gloom-enshrouded strive;

Before he sing, before he stay,

The poet first must live.

So may the brazen clang of life

Reverberate through the soul;

The poet's heart though torn by strife

He will himself make whole.

XV. HALE AND HARDY

SONG is a certain arrogance,

Let none find fault with me!

But bravely let the warm blood dance

Be gay as I and free.

If bitter every hour's distress

Upon my palate grew,

I should be modest, and no less

Nay, rather more than you.

For modesty charms everyone

In budding maidenhood;

Girls would be gently wooed and won

And fly before the rude.

And with a wise man modesty

Befits – some sage who might

Of time and of eternity

Teach me the lore aright.

Song is a certain arrogance!

I ply my craft alone;

Friends, women, of the dancing blood

Come in, come every one!

You cowl-less shaveling! zealous breath

Waste not on me! Your flow

Of speech might do my soul to death,

But make me modest – No!

Your vacuous phrases make me run;

Such stuff since many a day,

Shoe-leather that I trod upon,

For me was worn away.

When round the poet's mill-wheel turns,

Stop not his whirl of rhymes;

For who once understands us learns

To pardon us betimes.

XVI. UNIVERSAL LIFE

DUST is an element from which

Your art a use can wring,

Hafiz, when to extol your Love

Some dainty song you sing.

For more to be preferred is dust

That on her threshold lights,

Than carpet on whose gold-wrought flowers

Kneel Mahmud's favourites.

If from her door whirl clouds of dust,

Driven by some wind that blows,

Sweeter it breathes to you than musk,

Or attar of the rose.

Dust! long I was deprived of it

In the mist-shrouded North,

But in the glowing South for me

There surely was no dearth.

Loved doors, upon your hinges long

Sounded no sweet recoil!

Come, heal me, ye tempestuous rains,

And scent of breathing soil!

For now if all the thunders roll,

Wide heaven with leven glow,

The wind's wild dust, rain-saturate,

Will fall to earth below.

Straightway life leaps; a sacred force

And secret strives in birth;

Fresh mists exhale, green things arise,

O'er all the bounds of earth.

XVII

OVER the dust comes a shadow black, the beloved's attendant,

Dust I made me for her, but the shadow passed o'er me away.

An image may I not devise,

If such my pleasure be?

God gives an image of our life

In every midge we see.

An image may I not devise,

If such my pleasure be?

For imaged in my true love's eyes

God gives Himself to me.

XVIII. BLESSED YEARNING

TELL it the wise alone, for when

Will the crowd cease from mockery!

Him would I laud of living men

Who longs a fiery death to die.

In coolness of those nights of love

Which thee begat, bade thee beget,

Strange promptings wake in thee and move,

While the calm taper glimmers yet.

No more in darkness canst thou rest,

Waited upon by shadows blind,

A new desire has thee possessed

For procreant joys of loftier kind.

Distance can hinder not thy flight;

Exiled, thou seekest a point illumed;

And, last, enamoured of the light,

A moth art in the flame consumed.

And while thou spurnest at the best,

Whose word is " Die and be new-born! "

Thou bidest but a cloudy guest

Upon an earth that knows not morn.

XIX

A CANE pushed up that worlds might know

What sweetness is indeed!

Ah, would that gracious things might flow

From this, my writing-reed!