Coole and Ballylee, 1931

Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven’s face
Then darkening through ‘dark’ Raftery’s ‘cellar’ drop,
Run underground, rise in a rocky place
In Coole demesne, and there to finish up
Spread to a lake and drop into a hole.
What’s water but the generated soul?

Upon the border of that lake’s a wood
Now all dry sticks under a wintry sun,
And in a copse of beeches there I stood,
For Nature’s pulled her tragic buskin on
And all the rant’s a mirror of my mood:
At sudden thunder of the mounting swan
I turned about and looked where branches break
The glittering reaches of the flooded lake.

Another emblem there! That stormy white
But seems a concentration of the sky;
And, like the soul, it sails into the sight
And in the morning’s gone, no man knows why;
And is so lovely that it sets to right
What knowledge or its lack had set awry,
So arrogantly pure, a child might think
It can be murdered with a spot of ink.

Sound of a stick upon the floor, a sound
From somebody that toils from chair to chair;
Beloved books that famous hands have bound,
Old marble heads, old pictures everywhere;
Great rooms where travelled men and children found
Content or joy; a last inheritor
Where none has reigned that lacked a name and fame
Or out of folly into folly came.

A spot whereon the founders lived and died
Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees
Or gardens rich in memory glorified
Marriages, alliances and families,
And every bride’s ambition satisfied.
Where fashion or mere fantasy decrees
Man shifts about—all that great glory spent
Like some poor Arab tribesman and his tent.

We were the last romantics—chose for theme
Traditional sanctity and loveliness;
Whatever’s written in what poets name
The book of the people; whatever most can bless
The mind of man or elevate a rhyme;
But all is changed, that high horse riderless,
Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode
Where the swan drifts upon a darkening flood.

库勒和巴利里，1931

在我的窗台下，河水竞相奔流——
水獭在水下游，水鸡在水面上跑——
在上天俯瞰下清亮亮流过一里路，
再渐暗，坠入“黑暗的”拉夫特瑞的“地窖”，
流经地下，在库勒庄园内多石处
冒出，在那里舒展到一个湖沼，
坠落到一个洞穴里才算终结。
水不是孳生的灵魂又是什么？

在那湖沼的岸上有一片树林子，
此时在冬阳下全是干枯的棍棒，
我曾站在那里的小榉树林里，
因为大自然穿上了悲剧戏装，
那所有怒吼都是我心境的镜子：
听见天鹅起飞的骤然雷响，
我转身去看树枝在何处击破
那泛滥湖沼粼粼闪耀的水波。

那里还有个标志！那风暴的白色
就好像只是天空的凝聚浓缩，
像灵魂一样，飘入人们的视野，
在清晨消逝了，没人知道为什么；
而且那么美好：它矫正改过了
知识或知识的匮乏所犯的过错，
那么傲然纯净，孩童会心想
它可以用一点墨迹毁坏弄脏。

手杖戳在地板上的声音，从椅子
到椅子辛劳的某人发出的声音；
到处是名手装订的可爱书籍，
古老的石雕头像，古老的画本；
旅人和孩童在其中觉得满意
快活的大房间；一位末代继承人，
在那个统治者无一缺乏名望
或者不断出入于蠢事的地方。

一个创建者生于斯死于斯的地点
曾经显得比生命更贵重；有丰富
记忆的祖传林木或者花园
给婚礼、姻亲和家人增光添福，
每一位新娘都感到意足心满。
在时尚或只是幻想做主之处，
人到处迁徙——那伟大荣耀都耗空——
像贫穷的阿拉伯游牧人和他的帐篷。

我们是最后的浪漫主义者——曾选用
传统的圣洁和美好、诗人名之为
人民之书中所写的一切内容、
最能祝福人类心灵或升级
诗作的一切作为主题正宗，
但如今都变了，那高大骏马无人骑，
虽说荷马曾坐在那鞍上驰驱
在渐暗洪水上天鹅浮游之处。

傅浩　译

附

戏装：原文"buskin"，只是一种到小腿的鞋子，当然到底是不是鞋子不重要。

婚礼、姻亲和家人: 原文"Marriages, alliances and families"，感觉此种译法把原文的场域缩小了，个人斗胆译为「婚礼、联姻和家庭」。其中「家庭」表意角度用「家族」更为恰当，作此取舍是考虑到原文三词成行，故以「礼」「姻」「庭」中的"i"元音对应"-es"。

叶芝本人读其中的两个诗节的音频

维护者注——

此诗作于1931年2月。巴利里：见《拟刻于巴利里碉楼一块石头上的铭文》一诗注。

拉夫特瑞：爱尔兰诗人拉夫特瑞（1784—1835）是盲人，故说他是“黑暗的”；他有诗句云：“巴利里碉楼里的地窖坚固结实”，据说是指碉楼附近河流中的巨大深穴。

终结：叶芝错误地暗示那条流经巴利里碉楼的小河最终汇入库勒湖。

末代继承人：指格雷戈里夫人的独生子罗伯特。参见《纪念罗伯特·格雷戈里少校》一诗注。

高大骏马：指珀伽索斯 (Pegasus)，古希腊神话中的飞马，诗人灵感的象征。

叶芝诗集（增订本） 2018 ——

Raftery: The Irish poet Raftery (1784-1835), who was blind (thus “dark”), described a deep pool in the river near Thoor Ballylee as the “cellar.”

The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I—