I hold my face in my two hands,
no, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands,
to keep the loneliness warm----
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.
Under the dust a flake of consciousness,
a word, a condensation frozen on the breath,
is falling fallen windblown whirling:
Krishna on the white flake of the lotus
in the arms of Lakshmi, hands divine
inside each other's shirt. And all around them
wheels of heaven crash into the silent
windows of Bird Library past midnight,
Bird of the Dead Tongues, mine, my logy
snowbird Ba in snow. I should be home.
My daughters my twin girls say Ba for bird
for book for bottle -- Ba: in Egypt,
bird with a human head, the soul.
They wake, and wake their mother. Ba!
They point into the dark. Ba, Ba! they say,
and back to nursing weary in her arms.
Without consideration, without pity, without shame
they have built great and high walls around me.
And now I sit here and despair.
I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;
for I had many things to do outside.
Ah why did I not pay attention when they were building the walls.
But I never heard any noise or sound of builders.
Imperceptibly they shut me from the outside world.
四.祝酒歌
马拉梅 / 阿九译
也罢!这些童贞的浪沫,
正等着被撕裂成碎片;
而在远方,无数的人鱼
正沉浸在它们的深处。
我们启航了,五湖四海的
朋友,此刻我端坐船尾,
看你们壮丽的船头
劈开闪电与隆冬的浪峰。
一道微醺的醉意让我
高举这致意的酒杯
而无惧那甲板的狂颠。
孤独,暗礁,星辰,
为一切举杯,只要它能唤起
这洁白风帆的牵挂。
Salut
Stéphane Mallarmé
Rien, cette écume, vierge vers
à ne désigner que la coupe;
Telle loin se noie une troupe
De sirènes mainte à l'envers.
Nous naviguons, ǒ mes divers
Amis, moi déjà sur la poupe
Vous l'avant fastueux qui coupe
Le flot de foudres et d'hivers;
Une ivresse belle m'engage
Sans craindre même son tangage
De porter debout ce salut
Solitude, récif, étoile
à n'importe ce qui valut
Le blanc souci de notre toile.
Не действуя и не дыша,
все слаще обмирает улей.
Все глубже осень, и душа
все опытнее и округлей.
Она вовлечена в отлив
плода, из пустяка пустого
отлитого. Как кропотлив
труд осенью, как тяжко слово.
Значительнее, что ни день,
природа ум обременяет,
похожая на мудрость лень
уста молчаньем осеняет.
Даже дитя, велосипед
влекущее, вертя педалью,
вдруг поглядит на белый свет
с какой-то ясною печалью.
六.就像右手和左手
茨维塔耶娃 / 阿九译
就像右手和左手,
你的灵魂跟我的如此亲近。
幸福而又热烈,我们相拥
如同一对翅膀。
而旋风乍起,一道深渊横卧
在右翅,和左翅之间。
1918年7月10日
Как правая и левая рука
Марина Цветаева
Как правая и левая рука -
Твоя душа моей душе близка.
Мы смежны, блаженно и тепло,
Как правое и левое крыло.
Но вихрь встаёт - и бездна пролегла
От правого - до левого крыла!
10 июля 1918
七.不屈
威廉 E. 汉莱 / 阿九译
走出那覆盖我的夜晚,
它黑如跨越两仪的深渊。
我感谢名号万般的诸神,
为了我不屈的灵魂。
在四下恐怖的陷阱中
我不曾退缩,也不哭喊。
就算在命运的大棒下
头破血流,我也屹立不弯。
在这震怒与泪水之所以外,
恐怖的阴影正在逼近。
岁月的淫威既已看见我,
也必会看见我的无畏。
不管这道路何等曲折,
也无惧经卷里罗列着多少刑罚。
我是我命运的主人,
我是我灵魂的首领。
1875
Invictus
William Ernest Henley (1875)
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as a Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Standing its ground on the hill, as if it could hide
In its own stars, low down in the west of the sky.
I could hit it from here with a stone, put the torch
in the far back of its eye. It''s that close.
The next night, the dustbin sacked, the bin-bag
Quartered for dog meat, biscuit and bone.
The night after that, six magpies lifting
From fox fur, smeared up ahead on the road.