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Роберт Браунинг
XIV
If thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love’s sake only. Do not say,‘I love her for her smile — her look — her wayOf speaking gently — for a trick of thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day’ —For these things in themselves, Beloved, mayBe changed, or change for thee, — and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry, —A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love’s sake, that evermoreThou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
XXI
Say over again, and yet once over again,That thou dost love me. Though the word repeatedShould seem ‘a cuckoo song,’ as thou dost treat it,Remember, never to the hill or plain,Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strainComes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.Beloved, I, amid the darkness greetedBy a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain,Cry, ‘Speak once more — thou lovest!’ Who can fearToo many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?Say thou dost love me, love me, love me — tollThe silver iterance! — only minding, Dear,To love me also in silence with thy soul.
XXIV
Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife,Shut in upon itself and do no harmIn this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,And let us hear no sound of human strifeAfter the click of the shutting. Life to life —I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,And feel as safe as guarded by a charmAgainst the stab of worldlings, who if rifeAre weak to injure. Very whitely stillThe lilies of our lives may reassureTheir blossoms from their roots, accessibleAlone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer,Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.
XXVI
I lived with visions for my companyInstead of men and women, years ago,And found them gentle mates, nor thought to knowA sweeter music than they played to me.But soon their trailing purple was not freeOf this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,And I myself grew faint and blind belowTheir vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come — to be,Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,Their songs, their splendours (better, yet the same,As river-water hallowed into fonts),Met in thee, and from out thee overcameMy soul with satisfaction of all wants:Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.