Стихи и эссе

ROMAN WALL BLUES

     Over the heather the wet wind blows,
     I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

     The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
     I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

     The mist creeps over the hard grey stone,
     My girl's in Tungria; I sleep alone.

     Aulus goes hanging around her place,
     I don't like his manners, I don't like his face.

     Piso's a Christian, he worships a fish;
     There'd be no kissing if he had his wish.

     She gave me a ring but I diced it away;
     I want my girl and I want my pay.

     When I'm a veteran with only one eye
     I shall do nothing but look at the sky.

October 1937

EPITAPH ON A TYRANT

     Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
     And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
     He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
     And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
     When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
     And when he cried the little children died in the streets.[137]

January 1939

REFUGEE BLUES

     Say this city has ten million souls,
     Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
     Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

     Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
     Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
     We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

     In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
     Every spring it blossoms anew:
     Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

     The consul banged the table and said,
     'If you've got no passport you're officially dead':
     But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

     Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
     Asked me politely to return next year:
     But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

     Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
     'If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread':
     He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

     Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
     It was Hitler over Europe, saying, 'They must die':
     O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

     Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
     Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
     But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.