最經典優美的英文詩篇一

In Memory Of W.B. Yeats

悼念葉芝 (死于1939年1月)

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:

The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,

And snow disfigured the public statues;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness

The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,

The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;

By mourning tongues

The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,

An afternoon of nurses and rumours;

The provinces of his body revolted,

The squares of his mind were empty,

Silence invaded the suburbs,

The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities

And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,

To find his happiness in another kind of wood

And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.

The words of a dead man

Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow

When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,

And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,

And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,

A few thousand will think of this day

As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

1

他在嚴寒的冬天消失了：

小溪已凍結，飛機場幾無人跡

積雪模糊了露天的塑像;

水銀柱跌進垂死一天的口腔。

呵，所有的儀表都同意

他死的那天是寒冷而又陰暗。

遠遠離開他的疾病

狼群奔跑過常青的樹林，

農家的河沒受到時髦碼頭的誘導;

哀悼的文辭

把詩人的死同他的詩隔開。

但對他說，那不僅是他自己結束，

那也是他最后一個下午，

呵，走動著護士和傳言的下午;

他的軀體的各省都叛變了，

他的頭腦的廣場逃散一空，

寂靜侵入到近郊，

他的感覺之流中斷：他成了他的愛讀者。

如今他被播散到一百個城市，

完全移交給陌生的友情;

他要在另一種林中尋求快樂，

并且在迥異的良心法典下受懲處。

一個死者的文字

要在活人的腑肺間被潤色。

但在來日的重大和喧囂中，

當交易所的兼客像野獸一般咆哮，

當窮人承受著他們相當習慣的苦痛，

當每人在自我的囚室里幾乎自信是自由的

有個千把人會想到這一天，

仿佛在這天曾做了稍稍不尋常的事情。

呵，所有的儀表都同意，

他死的那天是寒冷而又陰暗。

II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:

The parish of rich women, physical decay,

Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to tamper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.

2

你像我們一樣蠢;可是你的才賦

卻超越這一切：貴婦的教堂，肉體的

衰頹，你自己;愛爾蘭刺傷你發為詩歌，

但愛爾蘭的瘋狂和氣候依舊，

因為詩無濟于事：它永生于

它辭句的谷中，而官吏絕不到

那里去干預;“孤立”和熱鬧的“悲傷”

本是我們信賴并死守的粗野的城，

它就從這片牧場流向南方;它存在著，

是現象的一種方式，是一個出口。

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:

William Yeats is laid to rest.

Let the Irish vessel lie

Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark

All the dogs of Europe bark,

And the living nations wait,

Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace

Stares from every human face,

And the seas of pity lie

Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right

To the bottom of the night,

With your unconstraining voice

Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,

Sing of human unsuccess

In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.

3

泥土呵，請接納一個貴賓，

威廉?葉芝己永遠安寢：

讓這愛爾蘭的器皿歇下，

既然它的詩已盡傾灑。

時間對勇敢和天真的人

可以表示不能容忍，

也可以在一個星期里，

漠然對待一個美的軀體，

卻崇拜語言，把每個

使語言�；畹娜瞬繉捝猓�

還寬赦懦弱和自負.

把榮耀都向他們獻出。

時間以這樣奇怪的詭辯

原諒了吉卜林和他的觀點，

還將原諒保爾?克勞德，

原諒他寫得比較出色。

黑略的惡夢把一切籠罩，

歐洲所有的惡犬在吠叫，

尚存的國家在等待，

各為自己的恨所隔開;

智能所受的恥辱

從每個人的臉上透露，

而憐憫底海洋已歇，

在每只眼里鎖住和凍結。

跟去吧，詩人，跟在后面，

直到黑夜之深淵，

用你無拘束的聲音

仍舊勸我們要歡欣;

靠耕耕一片詩f田

把詛咒變為葡萄園，

在苦難的歡騰中

歌唱著人的不成功;

從心靈的一片沙漠

讓治療的泉水噴射，

在他的歲月的監獄里

教給自由人如何贊譽。