"Smith, Clark Ashton - The Dead Will Cuckold You" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Clark Ashton)

Whom all men worship in the myrrh-sweet land
Where I was born. Do men in Yoros not
Adore her also? She is soft and kind,
Caring alone for love and lovers' joy.

Somelis: She is a darker goddess here, where blood
Mingles too often with delight's warm foam. . . .
But tell me more of that far land wherein
A gentler worship lingers.

Galeor: By a sea
Of changing damaskeen it lies, and has
Bowers of cedar hollowed for love's bed
And plighted with a vine vermilion-flowered.
There are moss-grown paths where roam white-fleecиd goats;
And sard-thick beaches lead to caves in which
The ebbing surge has left encrimsoned shells
Like lips by passion parted. From small havens
The fishers slant their tall, dulse-brown lateens
To island-eyries of the shrill sea-hawk;
And when with beaks low-dipping they return
Out of the sunset, fires are lit from beams
And spars of broken galleys on the sand,
Around whose nacreous flames the women dance
A morris old as ocean.

Somelis: Would I had
Been born in such a land, and not in Yoros.

Galeor: I wish that I might walk with you at evening
Beside the waters veined with languid foam,
And see Canopus kindle on cypressed crags
Like a far pharos.

Somelis: Be you more tacit: there are ears
That listen, and mouths that babble amid these halls.
Smaragad is a jealous king - (She breaks off, for at this moment King
Smaragad enters the room. )

Smaragad: This is a pretty scene. Galeor, you seem at home
In ladies' chambers. I am told you entertain
Somelis more than could a dull sad king
Grown old too soon with onerous royalty.

Galeor: I would please, with my poor songs and sorry lute,
Both of your Majesties.

Smaragad: Indeed, you sing
Right sweetly, as does the simorgh when it mates.
You have a voice to melt a woman's vitals