Страна уже принадлежала нам,
А мы ей нет. Мы ею обладали,
Не став ее народом. Весь восток
Уж век был наш, а мы... мы оставались
Английскими и, только колонисты,
Владели тем, что нами не владело,
Во власти у того, что потеряли.
Мы всё искали, где же наша слабость,
Пока не поняли, что отделили
Себя от той земли, где мы живем,
И отдались ей, и нашли спасенье.
Мы уступили раз и навсегда,
Не побоявшись воевать за это,
Стране, туманно охватившей запад,
Где всё: народ, история, искусства -
Всё предстояло, в ней одной теперь.
The Gift Outright
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.