Какие видения приходят в каталептическом сне? Тёмные ангелы с Шотландских гор, яркие картины прошлого и северный ветер над мерцающим морем? Сие стихотворение по насыщенности образностью превосходит многие предыдущие. Тут и сказка, и трагедия, и созидание.
Black Angel Of Highlands
- The cataleptic dream-
02.07.03.
One night I woke in the frost of the vapour
Which was engulfing my sheltering place
Doom reigned above me - no starlight nor taper
Just the blank coldness within the numb space
I felt the breath of aeon comes nearer
And for my life it's the certain decline
Slowly I stood up and looked in the mirror
But the reflection in it was not mine
That was the grand and astonishing vision -
Angel in black with the long hoary hair
He said to me: "I don't want your contrition
Show me your pain and I'll show you the glare"
So, when I spread my chilled hands into nowhere,
Some violent flow rushed my soul to the heights
And in a thrice we were lifted to hover
Over the foreign land's rocks, lakes and bights
I asked: "Who are you, funereal creature?
An awful messenger of the grave's calm?"
He answered: "I'm the infernal bewitcher,
Everything you ever tried to become
We've been the rovers of your antecedence
And it's our native ground lying below
Same as you, poet, I had my own credence
And same as you I have dwelt in a woe
My fertile fields and the sweet craggy Highlands
Only the few can discover this grace
And you, who're able to listen the silence,
Know, what the bond that the man can't unbrace
Your manifestoes were strong and malicious -
No God-damned pity and no slimy lies
But in distress you have wasted your wishes
And your enshrined love was covered by ice"
And I spoke: "Yes, I have lost those intentions
'Cause the skylines of my earth were o'ercast
My hopes were left 'tween the frozen dimensions
Of the foul NOW and the marvelous PAST
My bygone shapes were the sacred illusion -
Such a regret with no need to repel
But the reality's fiendish intrusion
Buried my passion in its perfect hell
And the opaque shroud of solitude palled me
Two decades fleeted before my dim eyes
My ecumenical sorrow recalled me
And terminated my thirst to cognize..."
Black Angel whispered: "Today we're unbidden,
But let's descend to the slope of the hill
There's an enchanting view, brighter than Eden
It's something charming for us to reveal"
We went downwards, stopped and trod to the spire
I saw the beautiful glare of the sea
And in the wind blowing out all my ire
I was no more a misdeemed expellee
I saw the forests where I have been roaming
On my youth's days far from torment and ache
All the blessed being from morning till gloaming
When my years ran for the pure pleasure's sake
Then 'twas the picture where I am the Keeper
Making a speech to the ghosts from the shore
Ere the lethiferous hearse of the Reaper
Takes me to reach the infinity's core
Dark Angel said: "I am not your preceptor
But if you still have the will to create,
Let your grim lyre be your ruling sceptre
And throw aside your unmerciful fate
Your esoteric path hardly will alter
But you won't be dipped in anguish with us
Spirits shall rise - simply touch the steel altar
And our eternity never will pass
Goodbye, compeer, our real names are carven
In the headstones of the green Scotland's strath
Maybe we'll meet at the eerie coven
If our ways will be united in death..."
His voice grew quiet and the vision got paler
As the faint dawn stretched to me its first beam
Well, I returned with the sense of a failure
That was the end of my strange splendid dream
I shook the sault of the brine off my fingers
Yeah, in my life there's no gleam to relume
And if my dream to the Erebus lingers,
I'll ride the malestrom and merge with Gloom