In Memoriam A. H. H. is a long poem by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is a requiem for the poet’s Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage in Vienna in 1833, but it is also much more. Written over a period of 17 years, it can be seen as reflective of Victorian society at the time, and the poem discusses many of the issues that were beginning to be questioned. |
Arthur Henry Hallam
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From In Memoriam A. H. H.
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel.
For words like nature half reveal
And half conceal the soul within.
But for the unquiet heart and brain
A use in measured language lies –
The sad mechanic exercise
Like dull narcotics mumbing pain.
In words like weeds I’ll wrap me o’er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold.
But that bad grief which these enfold
Is given an outline, and no more.
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By Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Полупорок я вижу в том,
Что слову поверяют боль –
Ведь, как природы, слова роль
Полуправдивым быть во всём.
Но сердцу и уму в страстях
Полезен мерной речи кнут –
Унылый механичный труд
Дурманом лечит при скорбях.
Как в траур, облачусь в слова,
Как будто в робу против стужи.
Но горе, ею скрытое снаружи,
Намечено, и только.
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Перевод Евгения Калинина |