Внезапный подарок судьбы: Donald Davie, "The Priory of St. Saviour, Glendalough"

Коллеги, всем как обычно похў, но под катом внезапно найденные мной сегодня очень хорошие стихи совершенно неизвестного мне раньше автора. Я наткнулся на них, перелистывая с утра привезённую мне сегодня антологию, за которую огромное спасибо они знают кому.

The Priory of St. Saviour, Glendalough
by Donald Davie

A carving on the jamb of an embrasure,
‘Two birds affronted with a human head
Between their beaks’ is said to be
‘Uncertain in its significance but
A widely known design.’ I'm not surprised.

For the guidebook cheats: the green road it advises
In fact misled; and a ring of trees
Screened in the end the level knoll on which
St. Saviour's, like a ruin on a raft,
Surged through the silence.

I burst through brambles, apprehensively
Crossed an enormous meadow. I was there.
Could holy ground be such a foreign place?
I climbed the wall, and shivered. There flew out
Two birds affronted by my human face.