Говард Лавкрафт - Кошмар По-эта

There is a lake in distant Zan,
Beyond the wonted haunts of man,
Where broods alone in a hideous state
A spirit dead and desolate;
A spirit ancient and unholy,
Heavy with fearsome melancholy,
Which from the waters dull and dense
Draws vapors cursed with pestilence.
Around the banks, a mire of clay,
Sprawl things offensive in decay,
And curious birds that reach that shore
Are seen by mortals nevermore.
Here shines by day the searing sun
On glassy wastes beheld by none,
And here by night pale moonbeams flow
Into the deeps that yawn below.
In nightmares only is it told
What scenes beneath those beams unfold;
What scenes, too old for human sight,
Lie sunken there in endless night;
For in those depths there only pace
The shadows of a voiceless race.
One midnight, redolent of ill,
I saw that lake, asleep and still;
While in the lurid sky there rode
A gibbous moon that glow’d and glow’d.
I saw the stretching marshy shore,
And the foul things those marshes bore:
Lizards and snakes convuls’d and dying;
Ravens and vampires putrefying;
All these, and hov’ring o’er the dead,
Necrophagi that on them fed.
And as the dreadful moon climb’d high,
Fright’ning the stars from out the sky,
I saw the lake’s dull water glow
Till sunken things appear’d below.
There shone unnumber’d fathoms down,
The tow’rs of a forgotten town;
The tarnish’d domes and mossy walls;
Weed-tangled spires and empty halls;
Deserted fanes and vaults of dread,
And streets of gold uncoveted.
These I beheld, and saw beside
A horde of shapeless shadows glide;
A noxious horde which to my glance
Seem’d moving in a hideous dance
Round slimy sepulchres that lay
Beside a never-travell’d way.
Straight from those tombs a heaving rose
That vex’d the waters’ dull repose,
While lethal shades of upper space
Howl’d at the moon’s sardonic face.
Then sank the lake within its bed,
Suck’d down to caverns of the dead,
Till from the reeking, new-stript earth
Curl’d foetid fumes of noisome birth.
About the city, nigh uncover’d,
The monstrous dancing shadows hover’d,
When lo! there oped with sudden stir
The portal of each sepulchre!
No ear may learn, no tongue may tell
What nameless horror then befell.
I see that lake – that moon agrin —
That city and the things within —
Waking, I pray that on that shore
The nightmare lake may sink no more !

Есть озеро средь края Зан,
Не из любимых людом стран —
Там бродит жуткий мертвый дух,
Чей шаг не различим на слух;
Древнейший призрак, нечестивый,
Столь одинокий и тоскливый,
Кой из густых и мутных вод
Выводит пар, что мор несет.
У топких илистых краев
Противно от гнилых душков,
А птиц, заманит коих брег,
Уж смертным не видать вовек.
Здесь солнце целый день палит
Пустую гладь, что глаз не зрит,
А ночью бьют лучи луны
В зиянье черной глубины.
Но молвят только в страшных снах,
Что возникает в тех лучах,
Что, не пропав в эпох чреде,
Лежит там в вечной темноте —
Ведь в тех глубинах различишь
Безгласной расы тени лишь.
Раз в полночь – немочь для души —
Я зрел то озеро в тиши,
Когда сквозь неба злой оскал
Ущербный месяц воссиял.
Я видел вязкий длинный брег
И тех, кто топи не избег:
Рептилий, в муках смерти ждущих,
Вампиров, воронов гниющих —
Над мертвецами же парил
Злой образ трупоедов крыл.
Ужасный месяц ввысь взошел,
На звезды в небе страх навел,
И в блеске вод открылось мне,
Таилось что досель на дне.
Сквозь жуткую пучину всю
Забытый град сверкал внизу:
Тускнеющие купола,
Во травах шпили без числа,
Пустые храмы, в сводах ил,
Нетронутый златой настил.
И тут скользнула в стороне
Орда бесформенных теней —
Орда отравы, что тотчас
Пустилась в безобразный пляс
Средь мерзостных гробниц рядов
Близ троп, на коих нет следов.
Вдруг вздулось кладбище дугой,
Нарушив вялых вод покой,
А от теней понесся крик
На лунный саркастичный лик.
Вслед вод озерных ток взбурлил
И хлынул в полости могил —
И вот с родившейся земли
Клубы зловонья поползли.
Над градом, что уж обмелел,
Теней ужасных сонм висел,
И – глядь! – распахнута теперь
В гробнице мрачной каждой дверь!
И тут уж описать нельзя,
Кой безымянный ужас начался.
Вот озеро – тот град – луна —
И твари – я, восстав из сна,
Молюсь, чтоб омывался брег
Кошмаров озера вовек !

Ah, Phillis, had I but bestow’d the art
Upon my verses, that I vainly gave
To fond designs and schemes to win your heart,
And tributes that abas’d me as your slave;
If that fine fervour that I freely pour’d
In suppliance at your feet had liv’d in rhyme,
And the soft warmth wherewith my soul ador’d
Been sav’d in numbers for applauding Time;
Had all th’ affection, spent on you alone,
Provok’d my fancy to poetic flights:
Fill’d my rapt brain with passions not my own,
And wafted me to dizzy lyric heights;
The scanty laurels of this feeble quill,
Believe me, kid, would sure be scantier still!

Ах, Филлис, если б я умел творить
Искусно строфы, коими напрасно
Твое замыслил сердце покорить,
Унизившись как раб тебе подвластный;
Тот если б пыл, что изливал я рьяно
У ног твоих, был в рифме отражен,
И теплота души, тобой лишь пьяной,
В стихах бы сохранилась для Времен;
Вся если бы любовь к тебе одной
Подвигла к поэтическим полетам:
Чужие страсти влив в рассудок мой,
Враз вознесла б к лирическим высотам —
То лавры скудные, что мной даны,
Поверь мне, крошка , были б все ж скудны!

It was in the pale gardens of Zaïs;
The mist-shrouded gardens of Zaïs,
Where blossoms the white nephalotë,
The redolent herald of midnight.
There slumber the still lakes of crystal,
And streamlets that flow without murm’ring;
Smooth streamlets from caverns of Kathos
Where brood the calm spirits of twilight.
And over the lakes and the streamlets
Are bridges of pure alabaster,
White bridges all cunningly carven
With figures of fairies and daemons.
Here glimmer strange suns and strange planets,
And strange is the crescent Banapis
That sets ‘yond the ivy-grown ramparts
Where thickens the dusk of the evening.
Here fall the white vapours of Yabon;
And here in the swirl of vapours
I saw the divine Nathicana;
The garlanded, white Nathicana;
The slender, black-hair’d Nathicana;
The slow-ey’d, red-lipp’d Nathicana;
The silver-voic’d, sweet Nathicana;
The pale-rob’d, belov’d Nathicana.
And ever was she my belovèd,
From ages when time was unfashion’d;
From days when the stars were not fashion’d
Nor any thing fashion’d but Yabon.
And here dwelt we ever and ever,
The innocent children of Zaïs,
At peace in the paths and the arbours,
White-crown’d with the blest nephalotë.
O’er flow’r-cover’d pastures and hillsides
All white with the lowly astalthon;
The lowly yet lovely astalthon,
And dream in a world made of dreaming
The dreams that are fairer than Aidenn;
Bright dreams that are truer than reason!
So dream’d and so lov’d we thro’ ages,
Till came the curs’d season of Dzannin;
The daemon-damn’d season of Dzannin;
When red shone the suns and the planets,
And red gleam’d the crescent Banapis,
And red fell the vapours of Yabon.
Then redden’d the blossoms and streamlets
And lakes that lay under the bridges,
And even the calm alabaster
Glow’d pink with uncanny reflections
Till all the carv’d fairies and daemons
Leer’d redly from the backgrounds of shadow.
Now redden’d my vision, and madly
I strove to peer thro’ the dense curtain
And glimpse the divine Nathicana;
The pure, ever-pale Nathicana;
The lov’d, the unchang’d Nathicana.
But vortex on vortex of madness
Beclouded my labouring vision;
My damnable, reddening vision
That built a new world for my seeing;
A new world of redness and darkness,
A horrible coma call’d living.
So now in this coma call’d living
I view the bright phantoms of beauty;
The false, hollow phantoms of beauty
That cloak all the evils of Dzannin.
I view them with infinite longing,
So like do they seem to my lov’d one;
So shapely and fair like my lov’d one;
Yet foul from their eyes shines their evil;
Their cruel and pitiless evil,
More evil than Thaphron and Latgoz,
Twice ill for its gorgeous concealment.
And only in slumbers of midnight
Appears the lost maid Nathicana,
The pallid, the pure Nathicana
Who fades at the glance of the dreamer.
Again and again do I seek her;
I woo with deep draughts of Plathotis,
Deep draughts brew’d in wine of Astarte
And strengthen’d with tears of long weeping.
I yearn for the gardens of Zaïs;
The lovely lost gardens of Zaïs
Where blossoms the white nephalotë,
The redolent herald of midnight.
The last potent draught am I brewing;
A draught that the daemons delight in;
A draught that will banish the redness;
The horrible coma call’d living.
Soon, soon, if I fail not in brewing,
The redness and madness will vanish,
And deep in the worm-people’d darkness
Will rot the base chains that have bound me.
Once more shall the gardens of Zaïs
Dawn white on my long-tortur’d vision,
And there midst the vapours of Yabon
Will stand the divine Nathicana;
The deathless, restor’d Nathicana
Whose like is not met with in living.