Позакласні  заходи  (середня школа)

                                      Вірші про Лондон

Джон Бэнкс (1709-1751), A Description of London

Houses, churches, mixed together,

Streets unpleasant in all weather;

Prisons, palaces contiguous,

Gates, a bridge, the Thames irriguous.

Gaudy things enough to tempt ye,

Showy outsides, insides empty;

Bubbles, trades, mechanic arts,

Coaches, wheelbarrows and carts.

Warrants, bailiffs, bills unpaid,

Lords of laundresses afraid;

Rogues that nightly rob and shoot men,

Hangmen, aldermen and footmen.

Lawyers, poets, priests, physicians,

Noble, simple, all conditions:

Worth beneath a threadbare cover,

Villainy bedaubed all over.

Women black, red, fair and grey,

Prudes and such as never pray,

Handsome, ugly, noisy, still,

Some that will not, some that will.

Many a beau without a shilling,

Many a widow not unwilling;

Many a bargain, if you strike it:

This is London! How d’ye like it?



Стихи №9: Луи Макнис (1907-1963), London Rain

The rain of London pimples

The ebony street with white

And the neon lamps of London

Stain the canals of night

And the park becomes a jungle

In the alchemy of night.

My wishes turn to violent

Horses black as coal–

The randy mares of fancy,

The stallions of the soul–

Eager to take the fences

That fence about my soul.

Across the countless chimneys

The horses ride and across

The country to the channel

Where warning beacons toss,

To a place where God and No-God

Play at pitch and toss.

Whichever wins I am happy

For God will give me bliss

But No-God will absolve me

From all I do amiss

And I need not suffer conscience

If the world was made amiss.

Under God we can reckon

On pardon when we fall

But if we are under no God

Nothing will matter at all,

Arson and rape and murder

Must count for nothing at all.

So reinforced by logic

As having nothing to lose

My lust goes riding on horseback

To ravish where I choose,

To burgle all the turrets

Of beauty as I choose.

But now the rain gives over

Its dance upon the town,

Logic and lust together

Come dimly tumbling down,

And neither God nor No-God

Is either up or down.

The argument was wilful,

The alternatives untrue,

We need no metaphysics

To sanction what we do

Or to muffle us in comfort

From what we did not do.

Whether the living river

Began in bog or lake,

The world is what was given,

The world is what we make

And only we can discover

Life in the life we make.

So let the water sizzle

Upon the gleaming slates,

There will be sunshine after

When the rain abates

And rain returning duly

When the sun abates.

My wishes now come homeward,

Their gallopings in vain,

Logic and lust are quiet,

Once more it starts to rain.

Falling asleep I listen

To the falling London rain.



Вернон Скэннел (1922-2007), Autumn

It is the football season once more

And the football pages of the Sunday papers

Again show the blurred anguish of the goalkeepers.

In Maida Vale, Golders Green and Hampstead

Lamps ripe early in the surprising dusk;

They are furred like stale rinds with a fuzz of mist.

The pavements of Kensington are greasy;

The wind smells of burnt porridge in Bayswater,

And the leaves are mushed to silence in the gutter.

The big hotel like an anchored liner

Rides near the park; lit windows hammer the sky.

Like the slow swish of surf the tyres of taxis sigh.

On Ealing Broadway the cinema glows

Warm behind glass while mellow the church clock chimes

As the waiting girls stir in their delicate chains.

Their eyes are polished by the wind,

But the gleam is dumb, empty of joy or anger,

Though the lovers are long in the coming the girls still linger.

We are nearing the end of the year.

Under the sombre sleeve the blood ticks faster

And in the dark ear of Autumn quick voices whisper.

It is a time of year that’s to my taste,

Full of spiced rumours, sharp and velutinous flavours,

Dim with the mist that softens the cruel surfaces,

Makes mirrors vague. It is the mist that I most favour.



Джон Дэвидсон (1857-1909), London

Athwart the sky a lowly sigh

From west to east the sweet wind carried;

The sun stood still on Primrose Hill;

His light in all the city tarried;

The clouds on viewless columns bloomed

Like smouldering lilies unconsumed.

“Oh sweetheart, see! How shadowy,

Of some occult magician’s rearing,

Or swung in space of heaven’s grace

Dissolving, dimly reappearing,

Afloat upon ethereal tides