У. Х. Оден Академические Граффити 1-10

У.Х.Оден Академические Граффити (1-10)
На память об Огдене Нэше.

Имя моё - Уистан.
Удачная рифма - Тристан.
Не Жбан, не Чурбан, не Болван  -
Разумен и не истукан.

Обет был у Генри Адамса:
"Дамам не дамся !"
Попавши в бардак,
не вякал никак.


W.H.Auden Academic Graffiti
(In memoriam Ogden Nash)

My First Name, Wystan,
Rhymes with Tristan,
But - O dear ! - I do hope
I'm not quite such f dope.

Henry Adams
Was mortally afraid of Madams:
In a disorderly house
He sat quiet as a mouse.

St Thomas Aquinas
Always regarded vine as
A medicinal juice
That helped him to deduce.

Johann Sebastian Bach
Was a master of his Fach:
Nothing could be more kluge
Than his Kunst der Fuge.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Could never walk through meadows
Without getting the glooms
And thinking of tombs.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Believed it proven
That, for mortal dust,
What must be, must.

Good Quinn Bess
Couldn't have liked it less,
When Burghley and Cecil
Drank out of the same vessel.

William Blake
Found Newton hard to take,
And was not enormously taken
With Francis Bacon.

Said Robert Bridges
When badly bitten by midges
"They're only doing their duty
As a testament to my beauty".

Robert Browning
Immediately  stopped frowning
And started to blush,
When fawned on by Flush.

Martin Buber
Never said "Thou" to a tuber
Despite his creed,
He did not feel the need.


Примечание.
Публикуется не перевод, а пересказ юмористической поэмы Уистана Хью Одена, англо-
американского поэта, прозаика, драматурга, эссеиста, университетского профессора.
Даты его жизни 21 февраля 1907 года - 29 сентября 1973 года. Родился в Англии, в
городе Йорк. Иосиф Бродский его назвал "величайшим умом двадцатого века".