The Watch-Fire
- This song unto all who would gather together and hold
- Brother by brother;
- A watch and a ward by the watch-fire of Eri, our old
- And long-weeping mother.
- This song unto all who would stand by the fire of her hope,
- And droop not nor slumber;
- But keep up the high and the mirthful proud courage to cope
- With wrongs beyond number.
- This song unto all who would gather and help yet once more
- Eri, our mother;
- And do nought that would anger the famous and great gone before
- Brother by brother.
火炬
- 这首歌献给所有愿集合并团结起来者，
- 兄弟同兄弟，
- 我们久泣的老母亲爱丽的火炬照耀下，
- 哨兵和卫士。
- 这首歌献给所有愿站在她希望之火旁，
- 不眠也不懈，
- 而保持高昂且欢快骄傲的勇气以对抗
- 无数邪恶者。
- 这首歌献给所有愿集合并再度帮我们
- 老母亲爱丽，
- 决不做惹怒著名的伟大先贤之事的人，
- 兄弟同兄弟。
傅浩 译
附
droop：bend or hang downward limply.
slumber: sleep
mirthful: full of mirth; merry or amusing.
mirth: amusement.
nought: naught, nothing.
维护者注——
爱丽：爱丽或爱尔或爱琳是爱尔兰的盖尔语古称。爱尔兰通常被拟人化为女性。
叶芝诗集（增订本） 2018 ——
This three-stanza patriotic poem survives only on a scrap of proof paper in the collection of Anne Butler Yeats, the poet’s daughter. It presumably dates from the early 1890s, when Yeats also published his poem on the death of the nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell, “Mourn—And Then Onward,” in the newspaper United Ireland for October 10, 1891. The two poems together represent Yeats’s closest verse approach to the nationalist rhetoric of Young Ireland, which Yeats admired for its ability to reach a wide audience but criticized for its lack of both sophisticated technique and emotional subtlety.
The Watch-Fire: In an interview published in the Irish Theosophist in fall of 1893, Yeats spoke of a desire to publish “a collection of essays, and lectures dealing with Irish nationality and literature, which will probably appear under the title of the ‘Watch Fire.’”
Eri: Eri or Erin is an ancient name for Ireland, frequently figured as a woman.
George Bornstein—