Spender, Stephen: Szüleim tiltottak... (My Parents kept me from children who were rough in Hungarian)

My parents kept me from children who were rough

and who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.

Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.

I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges

Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud

And I looked another way, pretending to smile,

I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled.

Szüleim tiltottak a durva fiúktól,

mert rongyos az öltönyük, kő a szavuk.

Combjuk ki-kivillant. Rohantak az utcán

e szikla-kúszók és csórén fürödők.

Mint izmaik, úgy tigris sem ijesztett:

én földön, a térdük a két karomon.

S féltem, ha a metsző gúny engem utánzott:

selypítve követtek a kertkapuig.

Sövény mögül ők fürgén kiugortak,

ugatni világunk, ránk dobni sarat.

Én másfele néztem. Kész volt a bocsánat:

rájuk mosolyogtam, s ők vissza soha.