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