The Old Grey Man
- Sudden as I sat in a wood
- An old grey man before me stood
- And his eyes were burning with molten fire
- And he touched the notes of a silver lyre.
- It was like the voice of spring
- As to it he thus did sing:
- “Many have sung of maiden fair
- Many have sung of golden hair
- Many have sung of eyes of blue,
- I sing of high born maiden too.
- Of maidens all she is the peerless
- O no mortal has a face so sweet
- Around each man’s heart she has wrapt a tress
- Of the blazing hair that rolls to her feet.
- Her voice is the treacherous echo
- And her eyes are those flames of yellow
- That play with flick’ring light
- Above the marsh at night.”
- He ceased. I held a wild thorn rose,
- I looked up—the grey man was gone,
- But the long haired scald
- What was he called?
- Was he the mind of the rose?
- —————— Who knows?
- I heard the caw of a distant rook
- And the gurgle of a far off brook.
灰发老人
- 我正坐在树林中，忽然
- 一灰发老人站在我面前，
- 两眼燃烧着熔炉的烈火，
- 一手把银色 的竖琴弹拨。
- 那就像流泉的声音，
- 他相和着如是唱吟：
- “许多人歌颂过美貌女子，
- 许多人歌颂过金色发丝，
- 许多人歌颂过蓝色眼眸，
- 我也来歌颂高贵的少女。
- 所有少女中她无与伦比，
- 凡间哟无如此姣好容颜，
- 男人颗颗心都缠上发丝，
- 她闪亮的秀发长及脚面。
- 她的嗓音是惑人的回响，
- 她的眼神是黄色的焰光，
- 夜间在沼泽的上面
- 与飘忽的鬼火游玩。”
- 他唱毕。我手执一朵野蔷薇，
- 抬头看——灰发老人已不见，
- 可那长发歌者
- 他名叫什么？
- 难道他是蔷薇妖？
- ————谁知道？
- 我听见远处一只乌鸦叫，
- 更远处一条小溪咯咯笑。
傅浩 译
附
flick’ring: flickering, 用撇号减去/er/的音节。
维护者注——
This provides yet another example of Yeats’s early and lifelong fascination with inspired poet-figures, here the old grey man who also assumes the demeanor and function of a bard (or skald). The long hair of the maiden, the conjunction of silver and gold, and the presentation of vision all recur in Yeats’s later work.
George Bornstein—