Роберт Фрост - Spoils of the Dead

Трофеи мертвого

Две феи как-то летним днём
Пошли по лесу прогуляться,
Цветов, травы нарвать, притом,
И вдоволь ими наиграться.

Цветы их в чащу завели,
Где можно кануть, как в пучину,
Там мертвеца они нашли,
Он в снег упал, будто в перину.

Но снег растаял по весне,
Вдруг феи на колени встали,
Блеснуло что-то в той траве -
Кольцо и цепь там увидали.

Играли с золотом сперва,
Потом в норе его укрыли,
Не побоялись мертвеца,
Вновь миру поутру отрыли.

Вдруг вы найдёте мертвеца,
Не поступайте так, как феи,
Не троньте цепи и кольца,
Всё это мёртвого трофеи.

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Robert Lee Frost - Spoils of the Dead

Two fairies it was on a still summer day
Came forth in the woods with the flowers to play.
The flowers they plucked they cast on the ground
For others, and those for still others they found.

Flower-guided it was that they came as they ran
On something that lay in the shape of a man.
The snow must have made the feathery bed
When this one fell on the sleep of the dead.

But the snow was gone a long time ago,
And the body he wore Nigh gone with the snow.
The fairies drew near and keenly espied
A ring on his hand and a chain at his side.

They knelt in the leaves and eerily played
With the glittering things, and were not afraid.
And when they went home to hide in their burrow,
They took them along to play with to-morrow.

When you came on death, Did you not come flower-guided
Like the elves in the wood? I remember that I did.
But I recognised death With sorrow and dread,
And I hated and hate the spoils of the dead.