Волшебница Шалотт и другие стихотворения

И о риф разбивает, —

Сладить с ней не вольна.

Г. Кружков

GODIVA

I waited for the train at Coventry;

I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,

To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped

The city’s ancient legend into this:

Not only we, the latest seed of Time,

New men, that in the flying of a wheel

Cry down the past, not only we, that prate

Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,

And loathed to see them overtax’d; but she

Did more, and underwent, and overcame,

The woman of a thousand summers back,

Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled

In Coventry: for when he laid a tax

Upon his town, and all the mothers brought

Their children, clamouring, ‘If we pay, we starve!’

She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode

About the hall, among his dogs, alone,

His beard a foot before him, and his hair

A yard behind. She told him of their tears,

And pray’d him, ‘If they pay this tax, they starve.’

Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,

‘You would not let your little finger ache

For such as these?’ — ‘But I would die,’ said she.

He laugh’d, and swore by Peter and by Paul:

Then fillip’d at the diamond in her ear;

‘Oh ay, ay, ay, you talk!’ — ‘Alas!’ she said,

‘But prove me what it is I would not do.’

And from a heart as rough as Esau’s hand,

He answer’d, ‘Ride you naked thro’ the town,

And I repeal it;’ and nodding, as in scorn,

He parted, with great strides among his dogs.

So left alone, the passions of her mind,

As winds from all the compass shift and blow,

Made war upon each other for an hour,

Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,

And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all

The hard condition; but that she would loose

The people: therefore, as they loved her well,

From then till noon no foot should pace the street,

No eye look down, she passing; but that all

Should keep within, door shut, and window barr’d.

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