Текст книги "Поэтический мир прерафаэлитов"

Автор книги: Альфред Теннисон

WHEN I AM DEAD, MY DEAREST

 
When I am dead, my dearest,
     Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
     No shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
     With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
     And if thou wilt, forget.
 
 
I shall not see the shadows,
     I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
     Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
     That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
     And haply may forget.
 

КОГДА МЕНЯ НЕ СТАНЕТ

 
Когда меня не станет,
     Не трать ни слов, ни слез.
Пускай трава могильный холм
     Укроет вместо роз.
И ни к чему, любимый,
     Мне верности обет:
Ты, если хочешь, помни,
     А если нет – так нет.
 
 
Там, где не потревожит
     Меня ни дождь, ни зной,
Не тронет песня соловья
     Отчаянной мольбой,
Где не наступит полночь
     И не придет рассвет, —
Я, может, буду помнить,
     А может быть, и нет.
 

Перевод О. Полей

A GREEN CORNFIELD

 
The earth was green, the sky was blue:
     I saw and heard one sunny morn
A skylark hang between the two,
     A singing speck above the corn;
 
 
A stage below, in gay accord,
     White butterflies danced on the wing,
And still the singing skylark soared,
     And silent sank and soared to sing.
 
 
The cornfield stretched a tender green
     To right and left beside my walks;
I knew he had a nest unseen
     Somewhere among the million stalks.
 
 
And as I paused to hear his song
     While swift the sunny moments slid,
Perhaps his mate sat listening long,
     And listened longer than I did.
 

ЗЕЛЕНОЕ ПОЛЕ

 
Весной над нивой, в вышине,
     Меж зеленью и синевой,
С земли едва заметный мне,
     Пел жаворонок молодой.
 
 
Следила я из-под руки,
     Как он, умолкнув, вниз летел,
Где в лад порхали мотыльки, —
     И снова ввысь, и снова пел.
 
 
Над нежной зеленью полей,
     Согретых утренним теплом,
Над свитым где-то меж стеблей,
     Укромно спрятанным гнездом
 
 
Звенела песня без конца,
     Текли минуты, как вода…
Но дольше слушала певца
     Его подруга у гнезда.
 

Перевод О. Полей

REST

 
O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
     Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
     Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
She hath no questions, she hath no replies,
     Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth
     Of all that irked her from the hour of birth;
With stillness that is almost Paradise.
Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,
     Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of Eternity
Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
     And when she wakes she will not think it long.
 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti BEATA BEATRIX Oil on canvas. Circa 1864–1870 Tate, London

Данте Габриэль Россетти BEATA BEATRIX Холст, масло. Ок. 1864–1870 Галерея Тейт, Лондон

КРАТКИЙ СОН

 
Земля, ей веки на века сомкни,
     Усталые глаза ее накрой,
Всю обними, веселье отгони,
     И шум, и смех, и звонких звуков рой.
Вопросов нет, ответов тоже нет;
     Она свободной не была такой
От горестей своих, что с ранних лет
     Тревожили. На рай похож покой.
И этот мрак светлей любого дня,
     Беззвучье это – музыки звучней.
Зажатое в тисках небытия,
Не бьется сердце. Но грядет восход,
Когда она проснется и поймет:
     Был краток сон, и вечность перед ней.
 

Перевод А. Строкиной

THE LOWEST PLACE

 
Give me the lowest place: not that I dare
    Ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died
That I might live and share
    Thy glory by Thy side.
 
 
Give me the lowest place: or if for me
    That lowest place too high, make one more low
Where I may sit and see
    My God and love Thee so.
 

ПОСЛЕДНЕЕ МЕСТО

 
Оставь за мной последнее из мест,
    Нижайшим гостем я войду в Твой дом:
«Вот я жила, вот я несла свой крест
    В сиянии Твоем».
 
 
Но если гостем быть почет велик,
    Позволь хотя б у двери постоять,
Чтоб только видеть, Господи, Твой лик,
    Тебе, Господь, внимать.
 

Перевод А. Строкиной

BITTER FOR SWEET

 
Summer is gone with all its roses,
    Its sun and perfumes and sweet flowers,
Its warm air and refreshing showers:
    And even Autumn closes.
 
 
Yea, Autumn’s chilly self is going,
    And Winter comes which is yet colder;
Each day the hoar-frost waxes bolder,
    And the last buds cease blowing.
 

ОСЕНЬ МИНОВАЛА

 
Поблекло лето и увяло:
    Остыло солнце, сникли розы,
Затихли утренние грозы;
    И осень миновала.
 
 
Идет за осенью по склонам
    Зима в холодной дымке синей,
И не дает раскрыться иней
    Пожухнувшим бутонам.
 

Перевод Е. Третьяковой

ECHO

 
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
 
 
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
 
 
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
 

ЭХО

 
Приди ко мне в ночной тиши кромешной,
    Приди в тиши, ожившей сонмом грез,
Приди в сиянье юности безгрешной
    И над потоком слез
        Пролей свой свет,
О, память, вера и любовь ушедших лет.
 
 
Как сладки эти грезы, слишком сладки —
    До горечи – от них в раю очнусь,
Любви отдав всю душу без остатка,
    Я там тебя дождусь —
        У райских врат,
Что, раз впустив, не выпустят назад.
 
 
Приди ко мне из грез и снов, чтоб снова
    Я ожила, отринув смертный хлад.
Приди, – я жизнью заплатить готова
    За миг, за вздох, за взгляд —
        Побудь со мной,
Как той весной, далекой той весной.
 

Перевод Е. Третьяковой

AN OCTOBER GARDEN

 
In my Autumn garden I was fain
   To mourn among my scattered roses;
   Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses
To Autumn’s languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!
   Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,
   Nor heard the nightingale in tune.
 
 
Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,
   You are but coarse compared with roses:
   More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses
Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,
That least and last which cold winds balk;
   A rose it is though least and last of all,
   A rose to me though at the fall.
 

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones LOVE AMONG THE RUINS Oil on canvas. 1894 Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton

Эдуард Коули Бёрн-Джонс ЛЮБОВЬ СРЕДИ РУИН Холст, масло. 1894 Уайтвик-мэнор, Уолверхэмптон

В ОСЕННЕМ САДУ

 
Зачем раскрылся маленький бутон
   В саду осеннем, где опали розы,
   Где вместо солнца лишь дожди и грозы?
Холодными ветрами сбережен,
В саду осеннем не узнает он
   О том, как мир в июне был чудесен
   И ночь полна тепла и птичьих песен.
 
 
Широколицым астрам на земле
   Еще цвести, аллеи украшая,
   Но мне милее роза небольшая,
Забытая на тоненьком стебле,
Последняя в холодном октябре, —
   Последняя, но даже здесь, у края
   Она осталась розой, умирая.
 

Перевод Е. Коробковой

THE GOBLIN MARKET

 
   Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
‘Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries; —
All ripe together
In summer weather, —
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy.’
 
 
   Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
‘Lie close,’ Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
‘We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?’
‘Come buy,’ call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
‘O,’ cried Lizzie, ‘Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.’
Lizzie covered up her eyes,
Covered close lest they should look;
Laura reared her glossy head,
And whispered like the restless brook:
‘Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.’
‘No,’ said Lizzie: ‘No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.’
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat’s face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat’s pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.
 
 
   Laura stretched her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.
 
 
   Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
‘Come buy, come buy.’
When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One reared his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heaved the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
‘Come buy, come buy,’ was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Longed but had no money:
The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr'd,
The rat-paced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried ‘Pretty Goblin’ still for ‘Pretty Polly;’ —
One whistled like a bird.
 
 
   But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
‘Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.’
‘You have much gold upon your head,’
They answered all together:
‘Buy from us with a golden curl.’
She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She sucked and sucked and sucked the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She sucked until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gathered up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turned home alone.
    Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
‘Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Plucked from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the noonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew gray;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so.’
‘Nay hush,’ said Laura.
‘Nay hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
To-morrow night I will
Buy more;’ and kissed her:
‘Have done with sorrow;
I’ll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink,
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap.’
 
 
   Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other’s wings,
They lay down, in their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gazed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.
 
 
   Early in the morning
When the first cock crowed his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churned butter, whipped up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;
Talked as modest maidens should:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight,
One longing for the night.
 
 
   At length slow evening came —
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep;
Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: ‘The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags.
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.’
But Laura loitered still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.
 
 
   And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fall’n, the wind not chili;
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
‘Come buy, come buy,’
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.
 
 
   Till Lizzie urged, ‘O Laura, come,
I hear the fruit-call, but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glow-worm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark:
For clouds may gather
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?’
 
 
   Laura turned cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
‘Come buy our fruits, come buy.’
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life drooped from the root:
She said not one word in her heart’s sore ache;
But peering thro’ the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent ’till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.
 
 
   Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
‘Come buy, come buy;’ —
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon waxed bright
Her hair grew thin and gray;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.
 
 
   One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watched for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crowned trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.
 
 
   She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.
 
 
   Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister’s cankerous care,
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins’ cry:
‘Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:’ —
Beside the brook, along the glen,
She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The voice and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Longed to buy fruit to comfort her,
But feared to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died In her gay prime,
In earliest winter time,
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.
 
 
   Till Laura dwindling
Seemed knocking at Death’s door:
Then Lizzie weighed no more
Better and worse;
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with clumps of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.
 
 
   Laughed every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel– and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter skelter, hurry skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes, —
Hugged her and kissed her:
Squeezed and caressed her:
Stretched up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
‘Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs.’ —
 
 
   ‘Good folk,’ said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie:
‘Give me much and many:’ —
Held out her apron,
Tossed them her penny.
‘Nay, take a seat with us,
Honour and eat with us,’
They answered grinning:
‘Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry;
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavour would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us.’ —
‘Thank you,’ said Lizzie: ‘But one waits
At home alone for me:
So without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I tossed you for a fee.’ —
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.
 
 
   White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood, —
Like a rock of blue-veined stone
Lashed by tides obstreperously, —
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire, —
Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee, —
Like a royal virgin town
Topped with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguered by a fleet
Mad to tug her standard down.
 
 
   One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,
Kicked and knocked her,
Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laughed in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrupped all her face,
And lodged in dimples of her chin,
And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
Some writhed into the ground,
Some dived into the brook
With ring and ripple,
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanished in the distance.
 
 
   In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,
Threaded copse and dingle,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse, —
Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she feared some goblin man
Dogged her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin skurried after,
Nor was she pricked by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.
 
 
   She cried ‘Laura,’ up the garden,
‘Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.’
 
 
   Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutched her hair:
‘Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruined in my ruin,
Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?’ —
She clung about her sister,
Kissed and kissed and kissed her:
Tears once again Refreshed her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.
 
 
   Her lips began to scorch,
That juice was wormwood to her tongue,
She loathed the feast:
Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks streamed like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.
 
 
   Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart,
Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame;
She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!
Sense failed in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town
Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree Spun about,
Like a foam-topped waterspout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;
Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life?
 
 
   Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watched by her,
Counted her pulse’s flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cooled her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laughed in the innocent old way,
Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of gray,
Her breath was sweet as May
And light danced in her eyes.
 
 
   Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town):
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
‘For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.’
 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti ‘BUY FROM US WITH A GOLDEN CURL…’ Wood engraving. 1862 Illustration for: Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market and Other Poems. London, Macmillan & Co., 1862

Данте Габриэль Россетти «ЛОКОН ПРИМЕМ МЫ В УПЛАТУ…» Гравюра на дереве. 1862 Иллюстрация к книге: Rossetti, Christina. Goblin Market and Other Poems. London, Macmillan & Co., 1862