Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river-sallows, borne aloftOr sinking as the light wind lives or dies;And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
54
On The Grasshopper And Cricket
蝈蝈与蛐蛐
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will runFrom hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the leadIn summer luxury, —he has never done.
With his delights; for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frostHas wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,And seems to one, in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
55
When You Are Old
当你老了
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fledAnd oaced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
56
The Road Not Taken
未选择的路
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And he one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, l kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come backI shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.
57
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
黑人谈河流
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human riversMy soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphratesp when dawns were youngI built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep,I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunsetI’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
58
O Captain! My Captain!
啊,船长,我的船长哟 !
O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack,The prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel,The vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores accrowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck. You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;Exult O shores, and ring O bells!? But I, with mournful tread,Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
59
The Arrow And The Song
箭与歌
I shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterwards, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke;And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
60
The Albatross
信天翁
Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birdsThat indolently follow a ship.
As it glides over the deep, briny sea.
Scarcely have they placed them on the deck Than these kings of the sky, clumsy,ashamed,Pathetically let their great white wingsDrag beside them like oars.
That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is, So beautiful before, now comic and ugly!
One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe; Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew!
The poet resembles this prince of cloud and skyWho frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman; When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers, His giant wings prevent him from walking.
61
Solemn Hour
严重的时刻