Poems. Edna St. Vincent Millay

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       And soft its breast beneath the head

       Of one who is so gladly dead.

       And all at once, and over all

       The pitying rain began to fall;

       I lay and heard each pattering hoof

       Upon my lowly, thatchèd roof,

       And seemed to love the sound far more

       Than ever I had done before.

       For rain it hath a friendly sound

       To one who’s six feet under ground;

       And scarce the friendly voice or face:

       A grave is such a quiet place.

      The rain, I said, is kind to come

       And speak to me in my new home.

       I would I were alive again

       To kiss the fingers of the rain,

       To drink into my eyes the shine

       Of every slanting silver line,

       To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze

       From drenched and dripping apple-trees.

       For soon the shower will be done,

       And then the broad face of the sun

       Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth

       Until the world with answering mirth

       Shakes joyously, and each round drop

       Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

       How can I bear it, buried here,

       While overhead the sky grows clear

       And blue again after the storm?

       O, multi-coloured, multiform,

       Beloved beauty over me,

       That I shall never, never see

       Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,

       That I shall never more behold!

       Sleeping your myriad magics through,

       Close-sepulchred away from you!

       O God, I cried, give me new birth,

       And put me back upon the earth!

       Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd

       And let the heavy rain, down-poured

       In one big torrent, set me free,

       Washing my grave away from me!

      I ceased; and through the breathless hush

       That answered me, the far-off rush

       Of herald wings came whispering

       Like music down the vibrant string

       Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!

       Before the wild wind’s whistling lash

       The startled storm-clouds reared on high

       And plunged in terror down the sky,

       And the big rain in one black wave

       Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

       I know not how such things can be;

       I only know there came to me

       A fragrance such as never clings

       To aught save happy living things;

       A sound as of some joyous elf

       Singing sweet songs to please himself,

       And, through and over everything,

       A sense of glad awakening.

       The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,

       Whispering to me I could hear;

       I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips

       Brushed tenderly across my lips,

       Laid gently on my sealèd sight,

       And all at once the heavy night

       Fell from my eyes and I could see—

       A drenched and dripping apple-tree,

       A last long line of silver rain,

       A sky grown clear and blue again.

       And as I looked a quickening gust

       Of wind blew up to me and thrust

       Into my face a miracle

       Of orchard-breath, and with the smell—

       I know not how such things can be!—

       I breathed my soul back into me.

      Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I

       And hailed the earth with such a cry

       As is not heard save from a man

       Who has been dead, and lives again.

       About the trees my arms I wound;

       Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;

       I raised my quivering arms on high;

       I laughed and laughed into the sky,

       Till at my throat a strangling sob

       Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb

       Sent instant tears into my eyes;

       O God, I cried, no dark disguise

       Can e’er hereafter hide from me

       Thy radiant identity!

       Thou canst not move across the grass

       But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,

       Nor speak, however silently,

       But my hushed voice will answer Thee.

       I know the path that tells Thy way

       Through the cool eve of every day;

       God, I can push the grass apart

       And lay my finger on Thy СКАЧАТЬ