An Old and Solitary One
- They say I’m proud and solitary, yes proud,
- Because my love and hate abideth ever
- A changeless thing among the changing crowd
- Until the sleep, an high soul changes never.
- This crowd that mock at me, their love and hate
- Rove through the world and find no lasting home,
- Two spectral things that beg at many a gate
- O they are lighter than the windy foam.
- Full often have I loved in olden days
- But those I loved their hot hearts changed ever
- To coldness some and some to hate—always
- I am the same, an high soul changes never.
- And often when I loved I fain would hate
- And when I hated find for love an home,
- But have not changed though waxing old of late
- But they are lighter than the windy foam.
- And therefore I am proud and sad forever
- Until the sleep, an high soul changes never;
- The crowd, their love and hate hath never home,
- O they are lighter than the windy foam.
衰老而孤独者
- 他们说我傲慢又孤独，对，傲慢，
- 因为在不断变幻的人群中间
- 我的爱与恨永远都保 持不变
- 直到长眠，高傲的灵魂永不变。
- 嘲笑我的人群，他们的爱与恨
- 在世上流浪，找不到固定家庭，
- 两个在许多门前乞讨的游魂，
- 啊，它们比风中的浪花还要轻。
- 从前的日子我往往爱到狂热，
- 可我爱的人总是变心，从热恋
- 有的到冷淡，有的到仇恨——而我
- 始终如一，高傲的灵魂永不变。
- 我在爱恋中往往也乐于憎恨，
- 憎恨中也为爱找到一个家庭，
- 虽然最近变老了却没有变更，
- 可是它们比风中浪花还要轻。
- 因此之故我永远傲慢而伤感，
- 直到长眠，高傲的灵魂永不变；
- 群众，他们的爱与恨永无家庭，
- 啊，它们比风中的浪花还要轻。
傅浩 译
附
abideth：abide.
维护者注——
This early rondel-like example of Yeatsian aloofness appears on a leaf of paper with two quatrains (one of them published in both “In a Drawing Room” and “Quatrains and Aphorisms”) on the verso. The paper is watermarked 1882 and the draft of the quatrain appears earlier than its publication in Dublin University Review for January 1886.
when: In both these lines, the word transcribed as “when” may be “where.”
George Bornstein—