第 64 节
作者:乐乐陶陶      更新:2021-02-20 05:16      字数:9322
  Rest in the bottom lay。
  For if I should (said He)
  Bestow this jewel also on My creature;
  He would adore My gifts instead of Me;
  And rest in Nature; not the God of Nature:
  So both should losers be。
  Yet let him keep the rest;
  But keep them with repining restlessness;
  Let him be rich and weary; that at least;
  If goodness lead him not; yet weariness
  May toss him to My breast。
  George Herbert '1593…1633'
  ODE ON THE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
  FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
  I
  There was a time when meadow; grove; and stream;
  The earth; and every common sight;
  To me did seem
  Apparelled in celestial light;
  The glory and the freshness of a dream。
  It is not now as it hath been of yore; …
  Turn wheresoe'er I may;
  By night or day;
  The things which I have seen I now can see no more。
  II
  The Rainbow comes and goes;
  And lovely is the Rose;
  The Moon doth with delight
  Look round her when the heavens are bare;
  Waters on a starry night
  Are beautiful and fair;
  The sunshine is a glorious birth;
  But yet I know; where'er I go;
  That there hath passed away a glory from the earth。
  III
  Now; while the Birds thus sing a joyous song;
  And while the young Lambs bound
  As to the tabor's sound;
  To me alone there came a thought of grief:
  A timely utterance gave that thought relief;
  And I again am strong。
  The Cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep:
  No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
  I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng;
  The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep;
  And all the earth is gay;
  Land and Sea
  Give themselves up to jollity;
  And with the heart of May
  Doth every Beast keep holiday; …
  Thou Child of Joy;
  Shout round me; let me hear thy shouts; thou happy Shepherd…boy!
  IV
  Ye blessed Creatures; I have heard the call
  Ye to each other make; I see
  The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
  My heart is at your festival;
  My head hath its coronal;
  The fulness of your bliss; I feel … I feel it all。
  O evil day! if I were sullen
  While Earth herself is adorning
  This sweet May morning;
  And the Children are culling
  On every side;
  In a thousand valleys far and wide;
  Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm;
  And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm: …
  I hear; I hear; with joy I hear!
  … But there's a Tree; of many; one;
  A single Field which I have looked upon;
  Both of them speak of something that is gone:
  The Pansy at my feet
  Doth the same tale repeat:
  Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
  Where is it now; the glory and the dream?
  V
  Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
  The Soul that rises with us; our life's Star;
  Hath had elsewhere its setting;
  And cometh from afar:
  Not in entire forgetfulness;
  And not in utter nakedness;
  But trailing clouds of glory do we come
  From God; who is our home:
  Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
  Shades of the prison…house begin to close
  Upon the growing Boy;
  But he beholds the light; and whence it flows;
  He sees it in his joy;
  The Youth; who daily farther from the East
  Must travel; still is Nature's Priest;
  And by the vision spendid
  Is on his way attended;
  At length the Man perceives it die away;
  And fade into the light of common day。
  VI
  Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
  Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind;
  And even with something of a Mother's mind;
  And no unworthy aim;
  The homely Nurse doth all she can;
  To make her Foster…child; her Inmate Man;
  Forget the glories he hath known;
  And that imperial palace whence he came。
  VII
  Behold the Child among his new…born blisses;
  A six years' darling of a pigmy size!
  See; where 'mid work of his own hand he lies;
  Fretted by sallies of his Mother's kisses;
  With light upon him from his Father's eyes!
  See; at his feet; some little plan or chart;
  Some fragment from his dream of human life;
  Shaped by himself with newly…learned art;
  A wedding or a festival;
  A mourning or a funeral;
  And this hath now his heart;
  And unto this he frames his song:
  Then will he fit his tongue
  To dialogues of business; love; or strife:
  But it will not be long
  Ere this be thrown aside;
  And with new joy and pride
  The little Actor cons another part;
  Filling from time to time his 〃humorous stage〃
  With all the Persons; down to palsied Age;
  That Life brings with her in her equipage;
  As if his whole vocation
  Were endless imitation。
  VIII
  Thou; whose exterior semblance doth belie
  Thy Soul's immensity;
  Thou best Philosopher; who yet dost keep
  Thy heritage; thou Eye among the blind;
  That; deaf and silent; read'st the eternal deep;
  Haunted for ever by the eternal mind; …
  Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
  On whom those truths do rest;
  Which we are toiling all our lives to find;
  In darkness lost; the darkness of the grave:
  Thou; over whom thy Immortality
  Broods like the Day; a master o'er a Slave;
  A Presence which is not to be put by;
  Thou little Child; yet glorious in the might
  Of heaven…born freedom on thy being's height;
  Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
  The years to bring the inevitable yoke;
  Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
  Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight;
  And Custom lie upon thee with a weight
  Heavy as frost; and deep almost as life!
  IX
  O joy! that in our embers
  Is something that doth live;
  That nature yet remembers
  What was so fugitive!
  The thought of our past years in me doth breed
  Perpetual benediction: not indeed
  For that which is most worthy to be blest …
  Delight and liberty; the simple creed
  Of Childhood; whether busy or at rest;
  With new…fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: …
  Not for these I raise
  The song of thanks and praise;
  But for those obstinate questionings
  Of sense and outward things;
  Fallings from us; vanishings;
  Blank misgivings of a Creature
  Moving about in worlds not realized;
  High instincts before which our mortal Nature
  Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
  But for those first affections;
  Those shadowy recollections;
  Which; be they what they may;
  Are yet the fountain…light of all our day;
  Are yet a master…light of all our seeing;
  Uphold us; cherish; and have power to make
  Our noisy years seem moments in the being
  Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake;
  To perish never;
  Which neither listlessness; nor mad endeavor;
  Nor Man nor Boy;
  Nor all that is at enmity with joy;
  Can utterly abolish or destroy!
  Hence; in a season of calm weather;
  Though inland far we be;
  Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
  Which brought us hither;
  Can in a moment travel thither
  And see the children sport upon the shore;
  And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore。
  X
  Then sing; ye Birds; sing; sing a joyous song!
  And let the young Lambs bound
  As to the tabor's sound!
  We in thought will join your throng;
  Ye that pipe and ye that play;
  Ye that through your hearts to…day
  Feel the gladness of the May!
  What though the radiance which was once so bright
  Be now for ever taken from my sight;
  Though nothing can bring back the hour
  Of splendor in the grass; of glory in the flower;
  We will grieve not; rather find
  Strength in what remains behind;
  In the primal sympathy
  Which having been must ever be;
  In the soothing thoughts that spring
  Out of human suffering;
  In the faith that looks through death;
  In years that bring the philosophic mind。
  XI
  And O; ye Fountains; Meadows; Hills; and Groves;
  Forebode not any severing of our loves!
  Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
  I only have relinquished one delight
  To live beneath your more habitual sway。
  I love the Brooks; which down their channels fret;
  Even more than when I tripped lightly as they:
  The innocent brightness of a new…born Day
  Is lovely yet;
  The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
  Do take a sober coloring from an eye
  That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
  Another race hath been; and other palms are won。
  Thanks to the human heart by which we live;
  Thanks to its tenderness; its joys; and fears;
  To me the meanest flower that blows can give
  Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears。
  William Wordsworth '1770…1850'
  THE WOMAN
  WOMAN
  Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung;
  Not she denied him with unholy tongue;
  She; while apostles shrank; could dangers brave;
  Last at the cross and earliest at the grave。
  Eaton Stannard Barrett '1786…1820'
  WOMAN
  There in the fane a beauteous creature stands;
  The first best work of the Creator's hands;
  Whose slender limbs inadequately bear
  A full…orbed bosom and a weight of care;
  Whose teeth like pearls; whose lips like cherries; show;
  And fawn…like eyes still tremble as they glow。
  From the Sanskrit of Calida