弗罗斯特（Robert Frost）诗精选
（根据弗罗斯特原作编译）

徐淳刚 译

Robert Frost（1874－1963），20世纪美国最杰出的诗人，作品以朴素、深邃著称，庞德、艾略特、博尔赫斯、布罗茨基等大师都对之有过相当的评价。他的一生，既不幸又充满光彩：有40岁之前的坎坷曲折，后半生的寂寞孤独，又有四获普利策诗歌奖、44种名誉学位和种种荣誉。他常常被称作美国诗坛的两面神，作品和人格遭到攻击，却又始终维持一个大诗人的和蔼形象，又是诗人、农夫和哲学家的三位一体。弗罗斯特一直通过具体的实物、情景写诗，斯蒂文斯说，你爱写实物，弗罗斯特反唇相讥，你爱写古董，这其实是诗人预先选择的精神图式和写作形式，一生几乎没有多大变化。作为以自然方式关注现实的大诗人，他对世界的态度既不像华兹华斯那样充满柔情，也不像斯蒂文斯那样粗壮、强硬，而是显得矛盾、折中，和他的精神导师爱默生一样带有超验主义。他向维吉尔学写田园牧歌，向哈代、叶芝等人学习平淡而富有暗示的语言，但用意更精深，作品常常通过时空反差的形式，也就是具体情境中的变化、对比，从而形成一个个坚固封闭却又极其开放的诗歌文本，简洁地表达出存在的真相，化腐朽为神奇。他喜欢戴着面具写作，崇尚文学的游戏原则，一开始就写得朴素含蓄，第一本诗集《男孩的意愿》（1913）就显示了过人的语言才华。虽然弗罗斯特一直戴着面具写作，但我更愿意将他称为 “一位伟大的徘徊者”。他徘徊在自然和人类、自我和事物、现实和理想之间，像被上帝驱逐的天使一样平静而又苦恼地审视着尘世生活。弗罗斯特幼年丧父，中年丧妻，老年丧子，他的坎坷人生常使他在作品中流露阴暗和悲观，但他更多是想用诗歌这种崇高的艺术形式排遣存在的焦虑和慌乱。他明智而不极端，曾在一首诗中将世界比作自己的情人，于是喋喋不休的吵闹就成为他摇曳的情思和毕生的哲学追求。他非常懂得独特是什么东西。他对现代诗歌的贡献，主要在于果断地拒绝了自由诗体(free verse)的潮流，以个人的兴趣探索出结合传统的抑扬格韵律和日常生活话语、结合古典人文情怀和现代怀疑精神的新诗体 (blank verse)，看似保守，实则妙笔生花。在精神的高标和题材的深广度上，自波德莱尔以来的诗歌大师几乎无一人能和但丁相比，但弗罗斯特的探索应该说是走得最自然、最深远的，所以深受世界各国各层次读者的欢迎，在美国更是家喻户晓。弗罗斯特创作的朴素无华、寓意深刻的抒情短诗和戏剧性浓烈、艺术性高超的叙事长诗应该说经得起任何考验，无韵诗、变体十四行、双行体等各种形式的作品都有佳作，和华兹华斯一样堪称体裁大师。他自16岁写诗，一直到89岁去世，半个多世纪笔耕不辍，共出版10余本诗集，主要有《波士顿以北》(1914)，《山间》(1916)，《新罕布什尔》(1923)，《西流的小溪》(1928)，《见证树》(1942)，《林间空地》(1962)等，在美国文学史上具有独特的地位，在世界文学史上也是一颗璀璨之星。然而，弗罗斯特在中国，如同余光中所说“损失惨重”，因为日常语言性的诗歌经过翻译，精华丧失殆尽。这里选译的几十首诗，表面上是弗罗斯特各个时期的创作精华，却也极有可能仍是以讹传讹。但是，通过它们，我们大致可以感受一位天才诗人的精神世界，一种对人类、对尘世生活的个性理解。它们对于中国当代诗人的写作，应该说依然具有非常重要的借鉴意义。

一位伟大的徘徊者（序言和目录） 目录

花 丛

牧场………………………………………………………
深秋来客…………………………………………………
没有鸟叫，关了窗吧……………………………………
进入自我…………………………………………………
找水………………………………………………………
花丛………………………………………………………
春潭………………………………………………………
花船………………………………………………………
金色年华难留……………………………………………
歌唱的力量………………………………………………
泥泞时节的两个流浪工…………………………………
苹果收获时节的一头牛…………………………………
忠诚………………………………………………………
袭击………………………………………………………
冬日伊甸…………………………………………………
无人重视…………………………………………………

不锁之门

下种………………………………………………………
进来………………………………………………………
沙丘………………………………………………………
密坐………………………………………………………
圈套………………………………………………………
黑夜的知己………………………………………………
黑暗中的门………………………………………………
荒野………………………………………………………
丝绸帐篷…………………………………………………
不锁之门…………………………………………………
布朗下山…………………………………………………
哦，上帝，请宽恕………………………………………
灶头鸟……………………………………………………
潘神和我们………………………………………………
收获落叶…………………………………………………
指令………………………………………………………
见证树……………………………………………………
田夫………………………………………………………

白桦树

补墙………………………………………………………
柴垛………………………………………………………
割草………………………………………………………
不深也不远………………………………………………
雪夜林边停歇……………………………………………
未选择的路………………………………………………
出生地……………………………………………………
白桦树……………………………………………………
火与冰……………………………………………………
树在我的窗前……………………………………………
摘完苹果…………………………………………………
一只小鸟…………………………………………………
城中小溪…………………………………………………
闲谈时间…………………………………………………

西去的溪水

山…………………………………………………………
蓝莓………………………………………………………
野葡萄……………………………………………………
斧把………………………………………………………
西去的溪水………………………………………………
雪…………………………………………………………
星星切割器………………………………………………

弗罗斯特年表

一位伟大的徘徊者（序言和目录） 译者小传

徐淳刚（1975-），蓝田猿人后裔。中国物主义代表人物。主要著作有诗集《自行车王国》，哲学随笔集《永恒之物与短暂之物》，小说集《共和国》，译著《弗罗斯特诗精选》。现居西安。

弗罗斯特经典短诗 第一辑：花丛

□ 牧 场

我这就去清理牧场边的水泉，
我停下来只为将枯叶扒干净，
我或许会等着看泉水又变清：
我不会去太久——你也来吧。

我这就去把那牛娃子牵回来，
它站在妈妈身边显着小得很，
它走路还不稳，妈妈舔着它：
我不会去太久——你也来吧。

The Pasture

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.

--------------------------------------

□ 深秋来客

我的忧愁，当她和我在一起，
她以为秋天的这些雨天
在所有的日子里或许最美；
她爱看光秃秃的树木，
她爱走湿漉漉的牧场小路。

她的欣喜，不让我呆在家。
她爱说话，我乐意倾听：
她指给我看鸟儿往南飞，
她欣喜于自己身上的灰毛衣
在粘粘的薄雾中闪着光。

那远处荒凉的树林，
还有褪色的地，阴沉的天，
这些她都看得仔细
她责怪我不懂得欣赏这一切，
边说边用眼睛轻轻瞪我。

我并不是到今天才明白
在雪花飘落之前
秋天的这几个日子有多温暖，
但我把忧愁藏在心底，
回味她的欣喜使秋天这样美。

My November Guest

My sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

----------------------------------------------

□ 没有鸟叫，关了窗吧

现在，关了窗吧，让原野安静下来；
如果必须，就让树木悄悄摇晃；
现在，没有鸟叫，如果有，
那一定是我错过了。

在泥泞重现之前，会有很长时间，
在第一声鸟叫之前，会有很长时间：
所以，关了窗吧，别去听风，
看风搅动的一切。

Now close the windows

Now close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.

--------------------------------

□ 进入自我

我的愿望之一是那些黑暗之树，
那么古老、坚定、密不透风，
不，它们并不是幽暗的假面，
一直伸展到命运的边缘。

我不该被抑制了；但是某一天
我会悄悄离开，进入它们的广阔，
勇敢地走过曾经敞开的土地，
看到迟缓的车轮撒下沙粒。

我想不出有什么理由应该返回，
人们没有沿着我走过的路
赶上我，在那里想念我
或渴望知道，我是否依然爱他们。

他们不会发现我有任何改变——
只是更加坚信自我的真实。

Into My Own
　　
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
　　
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
　　
I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
　　
They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true. 　　

-----------------------------

□ 找 水

门边的水井干了，
于是我们提着木桶和铁罐
穿过屋后的田野
去寻找溪水，看它是否还在流；

很愿意因这样的理由而去，
因为秋天的黄昏这样美
尽管有点冷，而田野是我们的，
还有树林在小溪边。

我们奔跑着，如同去和月亮相会
月亮缓缓升起挂在树背后，
光秃秃的树枝看不到叶子，
没有鸟叫，也没有风。

一旦进入树林，我们就停住
如同土地公公把我们藏在月亮下，
而当它再次发现我们
我们就笑着，跑开来重新躲藏。

我们的手紧紧抓在一起
不敢张望的时候就仔细听，
在我们一起营造的安静中
我们听见了，自己以为的溪水声。

仿佛来自孤独空间的记忆，
落下一阵细微的丁冬声
有时像珍珠，落在池塘水面上，
现在却变成白刀片。

Going for Water

The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;

Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.

We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.

But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.

Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.

A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.

---------------------------------

□ 花 丛

有一次，在清晨的露珠中
我去翻晒一个人刚割下的草。
当我看到平整的草茬时，
那使镰刀锋利的露珠已消散。
我曾绕到小树林后去找他；
听见了微风中磨刀的沙沙声。
但他已经离开，草割完了，
而我自然和他一样——孤单。
“反正都一样，”我心想，
“不管一起干还是分开。”
正在这时，一只迷惘的蝴蝶
扇着无声的翅膀迅疾地掠过，
像怀着隔夜的朦胧记忆寻找那
使它昨日栖息的欢乐之花。
起初，我见它总在一处打转，
原来草地间有几片枯萎的花。
然后它飞到我目力所及的远处，
忽又颤颤悠悠飞了回来。
我想着一些毫无根底的问题，
正打算俯身去翻地上的草；
但它先绕到我面前，并把我的目光
引向小溪边一丛高高的花。
那是镰刀唯一放过的，在
被割得干净的芦苇丛生的小溪边。
晨露中割草的人这么爱它，
让它继续繁茂，却似乎既不为谁，
也不是想让谁去注意他，
而是这清晨小溪边纯粹的欢娱。
我和那只蝴蝶在晨光中逗留，
而来自清晨的某种启示，
让我听到周围有醒来的鸟儿啼叫，
和他的镰刀对大地的低语，
更感觉到某种精神上的同一；
我想我今后干活再也不会孤单；
和他在一起，仿佛他是我的帮手，
中午困乏时，就和他在树下休息；
就像在梦中，兄弟般交谈
而我原本并不想和他知根知底。
“反正是一起干，”我心想，
“不管真在一起还是分开。”

The Tuft of Flowers

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been -- alone,
“As all must be,” I said within my heart,
“Whether they work together or apart.”
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
“Men work together,”I told him from the heart,
“Whether they work together or apart.”

---------------------------------------------------

□ 春 潭

这些潭水，虽在林间，
却几乎映出整个无暇的蓝天，
就像身边的花，瑟瑟发抖，
又似另一些花，即将枯干，
可它们不会汇进溪水流到外面，
只是缘根而上，使黑暗之叶伸展。

至于把潭水汲入新蕾的树木
葱郁一片，即将撑起繁茂的夏天——
但在它们竭潭枯花之前
不妨先思考两遍：
这如花的潭水，似水的花，
只是皑皑白雪消融在昨天。

Spring Pools

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods --
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

-------------------------------------------------------

□ 花 船

渔夫系着围裙在两只手底
下边理发边和理发师聊天，
而在房屋和谷仓的角落里
他的深海小平底船已靠岸。

停泊在阳光充足的草地上
当风吹起时它曾从乔治的
堤岸和鳕鱼一起辗转回家
满船的花草早已漫过船沿。

我从天堂一般的货物判断
它需要的是更加狂暴的天，
渔船和主人藉着命运出航
一起去寻找那欢乐的港湾。

The Flower Boat

The fisherman's swapping a yarn for a yarn
Under the hand of the village barber,
And her in the angle of house and barn
His deep-sea dory has found a harbor.

At anchor she rides the sunny sod
As full to the gunnel of flowers growing
As ever she turned her home with cod
From George's bank when winds were blowing.

And I judge from that elysian freight
That all they ask is rougher weather,
And dory and master will sail by fate
To seek the Happy Isles together.

--------------------------------------------

□ 金色年华难留

自然新绿是金，
色泽鲜亮难存。
初绽新叶如花，
花开花谢一刹。
绿叶遂成落叶，
乐园陷入伤悲。
清晨转瞬白昼，
金色年华难留。

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

------------------------------

□ 歌唱的力量

雪花下在温暖干燥的大地上
找不到落脚之处成形聚集。
它们花费了好大力气想让大地变得
潮湿冰冷，最终还是失败。
它们没能在黑土上制造白意象。
它们消失如同大地将它们送回家。
直到晚上它们才有所改变
在地面上形成了衣着褴褛似的带子
花草树木终于承认下雪了，
除了路面几乎全都返回到了冬天。
第二天雪一堆一堆死寂一片。
草在一个大军的践踏下变得平整。
树枝被压弯几乎要入地生根，
细长的枝条就像结满了果子
蓓蕾像一个个杯子，全都盛着个雪球。
道路独自在泥泞中显出
那奥秘来自更多的热量
来自地心的热或者足迹留下的温暖。

春天里总是歌手云集远超以往
任何一处都会有歌声将我们覆盖。
画眉蓝背鸟山雀麻雀知更鸟以及更多；
一些要北上直到较远的哈得逊湾，
另一些北上飞过头又折了回来，
只有很少一部分留下筑巢。
现在看来它们还是喜欢这迟来的雪。
田野上它们已无处可去；
如果一直飞很快就会精疲力尽；
它们尝试着站上树枝
可一踩上去就引起一场雪崩。
除了那条路它们再找不到落脚处。
坏天气使它们的隔阂变小
好像成了一个亲密无间的家族。
道路变成了牛羊奔走过的河沟
闪光的鸟翼似岩石上击起的涟漪。
我跺脚驱赶它们，像驾驶着
飞机在地面上滑行。它们几乎
在和我抢着走路，不想飞走，
叽叽喳喳说既然来了就应该歌唱。
有几只肯定是让我赶傻了
呼啦一下闪开，腾空而起，
在或粗或细的白树枝间扑棱
树林好比满是雕刻的大理石门厅
它们胡乱扑闪着翅膀又飞到
我面前，好像我是赶着牲口的商人
结束了驱赶的梦魇。
如此一阵雪根本不可能教会它们
在追击之后不可能再有追击；
它们也没有飞到我身后独自留下。

好吧，大雪终于显示了某种东西
乡村歌唱的力量就这样被带来聚集，
虽然坏天气使某种过程显得不稳
但是依然要准备着去爆发
而且从根部和种子唱开满山的野花。

Our Singing Strength

It snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm
The flakes could find no landing place to form.
Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold,
And still they failed of any lasting hold.
They made no white impression on the black.
They disappeared as if earth sent them back.
Not till from separate flakes they changed at night
To almost strips and tapes of ragged white
Did grass and garden ground confess it snowed,
And all go back to winter but the road.
Next day the scene was piled and puffed and dead.
The grass lay flattened under one great tread.
Borne down until the end almost took root,
The rangey bough anticipated fruit
With snowball cupped in every opening bud.
The road alone maintained itself in mud,
Whatever its secret was of greater heat
From inward fires or brush of passing feet.

In spring more mortal singers than belong
To any one place cover us with song.
Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng;
Some to go further north to Hudson's Bay,
Some that have come too far north back away,
Really a very few to build and stay.
Now was seen how these liked belated snow.
the field had nowhere left for them to go;
They'd soon exhausted all there was in flying;
The trees they'd had enough of with once trying
And setting off their heavy powder load.
They could find nothing open but the road.
Sot there they let their lives be narrowed in
By thousands the bad weather made akin.
The road became a channel running flocks
Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks.
I drove them under foot in bits of flight
That kept the ground. almost disputing right
Of way with me from apathy of wing,
A talking twitter all they had to sing.
A few I must have driven to despair
Made quick asides, but having done in air
A whir among white branches great and small
As in some too much carven marble hall
Where one false wing beat would have brought down all,
Came tamely back in front of me, the Drover,
To suffer the same driven nightmare over.
One such storm in a lifetime couldn't teach them
That back behind pursuit it couldn't reach them;
None flew behind me to be left alone.

Well, something for a snowstorm to have shown
The country's singing strength thus brought together,
the though repressed and moody with the weather
Was none the less there ready to be freed
And sing the wildflowers up from root and seed.

-------------------------------------------------

□ 泥泞时节的两个流浪工

从泥泞中扑踏过来的那两个人
见我在石墙这边的院子里劈柴，
“用点力气！” 其中一个像是
笑着冲我高喊，使我抬起了头。
我一想便知，他为什么拉下来，
却让他的同伴向前多走了几步；
我非常清楚他打的是什么算盘：
他想在我这打零工，赚些工钱。

上好的橡木是我一块块劈开的，
每块柴几乎都有柴墩子那么粗；
一片一片，我直直用力地劈开，
像分裂的岩石掉落时不带碎片。
克己向内的生命或许会将劈柴
所耗的时间节省下来，去关心
公共事业，但那天我只是劈着
渺小的木柴，为了灵魂的解放。

太阳虽然温暖，但是风却寒冷。
你知道，在四月明媚的日子里，
当太阳照耀风却显得柔和寂静，
那你就提前一个月进入到五月。
但如果你不假思索，正这么说，
忽然黑云滚滚遮没太阳的拱门，
狂风自远处的雪山上呼啸而来，
让你又退后两个月，回到三月。

一只北上的蓝背鸟温顺地落下，
顺着风的方向将羽毛梳理整齐，
它的歌声定好调子似的不想让
一朵漂亮的花过早地打开蓓蕾。
雪片偶尔还会飘下：它该知道，
冬天只是在糊弄人，假装睡觉。
虽然，是忧郁的蓝却显得乐观，
它并不奉劝会开花的过早开花。

我们或许会用巫女神婆的魔棒
在夏天去探远处山林里的水源，
可现在，每条车辙都成了小溪，
每个蹄印，都成了春天的池塘。
有水当然好啦，但请不要忘了，
那在地表之下潜伏的严寒冰冷，
定会在太阳下山之后摇身冒出，
在水上炫耀它水晶般的白牙齿。

当我做着我心甘情愿做的工作，
那两个人却用想赚工钱的问话，
迫使我更加热爱我手中的活计。
这么说吧，我以前从没意识到
一把斧头高高悬在头顶的力量，
双脚叉开紧紧抓住大地的感觉，
柔软、光滑的肌肉流淌着热汗，
有着青春的热量、活力与节奏。

那两个人沉重的扑踏来自林区。
（天知道昨晚他们在哪儿睡觉，
但可以肯定，离木材厂不太远）
他们以为就他们有砍伐的能耐。
不管是上山打柴的或伐木工人，
他们评判人，只凭手中的工具。
对于握着斧头劈柴或伐木的人，
他们一看便知是老手还是外行。

我们互相注视着，再没说什么。
他们以为，只要停在那个位置，
他们的逻辑就会控制我的头脑：
似乎，我没有能力和他们这种
只为赚钱才去工作的人闹着玩。
我要的是兴趣，而他们是需求。
在这两样不得不并存的情况下，
他们说的自然优先：人人皆知。

但是谁又会相信他们这种区分？
我活着的目的只不过是想结合
兴趣和职业，这就像我的两只
眼睛注视，共同构成一个视域。
只有将喜好和需求完美地结合，
使工作成为凡人的游戏和赌注，
这样一个人才真能干出点名堂，
权当是冲着天堂或遥远的未来。

Two Tramps in Mud Time

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!”
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
The judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

-----------------------------------------------

□ 苹果收获时节的一头牛

最近不知道是什么让这个家伙
发神经，她不进门更看不到墙壁，
看不到墙壁更不去想白痴的建造。
她的脸上总是沾满树叶渣，口水
流淌好似苹果汁。尝过了鲜果，
她已不屑再去草木凋零的牧场。
从一棵树到另一棵树，她躺着咀嚼甘美。
意外的收获是树上掉落的烂苹果。
当她逃走时不得不避闪着它们的敲打。
在一个小山上她对着天空怒吼。
她的乳汁枯竭，乳房干瘪。

The Cow in Apple-Time

Something inspires the only cow of late
To make no more of a wall than an open gate,
And think no more of wall-builders than fools.
Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools
A cider syrup.Having tasted fruit,
She scorns a pasture withering to the root.
She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten.
The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.
She leaves them bitten when she has to fly.
She bellows on a knoll against the sky.
Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.

---------------------------------------------------

□ 忠 诚

想不出有怎样的忠诚，
能胜过岸对海的深情：
守住一条弯弯的曲线，
默数永无止息的涛声。

Devotion

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.

--------------------------------------------------

□ 袭 击

总是这样，在一个宿命的夜晚
最后聚集的雪一起落下，使
黑色的树林变得洁白，伴随一首
整个冬天都不再响起的歌——
嘶嘶声掠过毫无遮拦的地面，
我四下里张望，几乎目瞪口呆，
像一个遭到突然袭击的人
最终放弃了他的使命，听任死亡
在自己头顶降临，虽说没
做过坏事，也没什么值得拍手庆贺，
简直如同生命停滞，尚未开始。

然而，所有的先例我都已经过：
我知道冬天的死亡想占领
大地但终究失败：漫长的暴风雪中
雪能积到四五尺深，风吹不动
当它再一次压住红枫、白桦和橡树，
却阻断不了鸟们银铃般的歌声；
不久我将看到积雪全从山上滑落
融入四月纤细的溪水中
那闪光的尾巴穿过去年凋谢的花
和枯死的草，像条消失的蛇。
没什么是白色的，除了一棵桦树，
那里有土丘中的房屋，一座教堂。

The Onset

Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.

Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured again maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper's silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year's withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.

--------------------------------------

□ 冬日伊甸

冬日的园林伫立于桤木的湿地，
兔子们纷纷出穴在阳光下嬉戏，
它似乎靠近天堂但天堂里没有：
未融化的雪抑或昏昏欲睡的树。

它将存在提升到洁白的雪面上，
比下面的湿地更高的一个水平，
这个水平更靠近蓝莹莹的天空，
去年的浆果正闪耀亮晶晶的红。

它提升了一头憔悴而奢华的兽，
使它能伸手够着更高处的果木，
让它尽情享受苹果树的嫩树皮，
这是那年最高的被抓烂的标记。

靠近天堂时动物们停止了纠缠：
孤单的鸟儿聚集成亲密的伙伴，
满足于打量嫩芽。它们猜测着：
哪些会长成叶子，哪些长成花。

一个羽毛的锤子重重敲了两声。
冬日的伊甸在两点钟恰好完成。
冬日的一小时看起来多么短暂，
似乎不值得万物醒来四处游玩。

译注：一个羽毛的锤子，这里是说啄木鸟。

A Winter Eden

A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp,
As near a paradise as it can be
And not melt snow or start a dormant tree.

It lifts existence on a plane of snow
One level higher than the earth below,
One level nearer heaven overhead,
And last year's berries shining scarlet red.

It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast
Where he can stretch and hold his highest feat
On some wild apple tree's young tender bark,
What well may prove the year's high girdle mark.

So near to paradise all pairing ends:
Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends,
Content with bud-inspecting. They presume
To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom.

A feather-hammer gives a double knock.
This Eden day is done at two o'clock.
An hour of winter day might seem too short
To make it worth life's while to wake and sport.

-----------------------------------------

□ 无人重视

他们任我们往这边走，
好像很肯定我们已走错路，
我们这才有机会坐在路边角落里，
一脸孩子样、漂泊样、天使样，
看看是不是被抛弃。

In Neglect

They leave us so to the way we took,
As two in whom them were proved mistaken,
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,
With mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look,
And try if we cannot feel forsaken.

弗罗斯特经典短诗 第二辑：不锁之门

□ 下 种

今晚你来叫我停下
说饭菜已上桌，我们将看看
我是否能停止掩埋这白嫩的
从苹果树上掉落的花瓣。
（柔软的花瓣，并非无益
它们可以和那或光或皱的豆子做伴；）
和你回家之前，或许你已忘了
你来干什么，变得和我一样，
成为春日大地上一个热情的奴仆。
如此用心地种下种子
等待它们破土而出
也正是杂草生长、遮蔽的时候，

弓着倔强的身子钻出
顶开它的路，抖落身上的土。

Putting in the Seed

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
-------------------------------------------------
□ 进 来

当我走到树林边，
鸫鸟的音乐——听啊！
如果这时外面还亮点，
里面已是黑暗。

树林太黑暗，对一只鸟
它用翅膀的灵活
改善夜晚栖息的法则，
不过它依然要唱歌。

落日最后的一丝光线
正在西天死去，
却仍残活下来倾听着
鸫鸟胸中的歌。
　　　　
远在那隐约的黑暗中
鸫鸟的歌声还在——
几乎像一声“进来”
带着黑暗和悲哀。

想得美，我出来看星星；
才不“进来”呢。
就是邀请我也不；
何况没请我。

Come In

As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.

------------------------------------------------

□ 沙 丘

海浪是绿色的潮湿的
但在它们平息的处所，
依然卷着更大的浪涛
而且是褐色的干燥的。

那是变成沙丘的海洋
涌进渔夫栖息的村镇，
想用坚硬的沙子掩埋
海水不能淹死的人们。

海或许了解自身远近
但却藉由变化的规律，
希望从自己的思想中
将这里的人永远抹去。

人们留给它一条小船
供它摇晃甚至去吞没；
他们离开房屋将想着
如同抛弃无用的贝壳。

Sand Dunes

Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.

They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.

She may know cove and cape,
But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape,
She hopes to cut off mind.

Men left her a ship to sink:
They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think
For the one more cast-off shell.

-------------------------------------

□ 密 坐

我们转着圈地跳舞并猜测，
奥秘坐在中间什么都知道。

The Secret Sits

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

--------------------------------------------

□ 圈 套

我看见一只丑肥的蜘蛛，浑身白亮，
在一朵白色的万灵草上，捉住了一只
似一片素缎子布料的白飞蛾——
被揉和在一起的死亡和摧残的气息
交叉混同，等待迎接黎明，
如同一个巫女的肉汤配料——
一只雪白的蜘蛛，一朵泡沫般的花，
死寂的双翅，似摇摇欲坠的风筝。

哦，为什么那朵花会是白色的，
而路边的万灵草却绽放着淡淡的蓝？
究竟是什么让蜘蛛爬上那株草，
再趁着黑漆漆的夜色把白飞蛾招来？
难道这黎明前的圈套不让人恐惧？
无处不在的圈套连一条小命都不放过。

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?
If design govern in a thing so small.

------------------------------------------------------

□ 黑夜的知己

我以为我早就熟悉这黑夜。
我冒雨出去，又冒雨回来。
我已越出街灯照亮的边界。

我看到城中的小巷最悲惨。
我经过敲更的守夜人身边，
我不愿多讲，低垂下眼帘。

我停住，脚步再也听不见，
从另一条街升起越过屋顶
传来一声好似折断的哭喊，

那不是叫我回去或说再见；
在更远、远离尘世的高处，
有一座钟悬着，一闪一闪，

它宣称时间不错又不正确，
我以为我早就熟悉这黑夜。

Acquainted with the night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

------------------------------------------------------------

□ 黑暗中的门

黑暗中从这房间到那房间，
我盲目地举着手，护着脸，
却忘了交叉十指，伸出手，
让我的双臂拢成—个弧度。
突然！一道小门撞了过来，
照着我的脑门子狠狠一击，
甚至，连这个比喻也撞碎。
如此人和物不再那么匹配，
虽然过去它们一直都成对。

The Door in the Dark

In going from room to room in the dark,
I reached out blindly to save my face,
But neglected, however lightly, to lace
My fingers and close my arms in an arc.
A slim door got in past my guard,
And hit me a blow in the head so hard.
I had my native simile jarred.
So people and things don't pair any more
With what they used to pair with before.

-------------------------------

□ 荒 野

雪花匆匆飘落，夜降临，
我望着一片路过的荒野：
地面几乎尽被白雪覆盖，
只有残枝断草裸露在外。

四周的树林环抱着荒野。
所有动物似已入巢安睡。
我无力思想也无心体会，
孤独寂寞不觉将我包围。

或许我内心也这般荒凉，
甚至比看到的还要寂寞；
入夜前的雪地一片死寂，
毫无表情，什么也不说。

星和星的距离吓不倒我，
遥远、无人居住更荒芜。
离家越近，我却越孤独，
内心的荒野那才叫恐怖。

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

-----------------------------------------------

□ 丝绸帐篷

她，犹如田野中的一顶丝绸帐篷
当晴朗夏日的中午，一阵和煦的微风
吹干了露珠，根根丝带变得柔和，
她便抓住丝线，自由自在，轻轻飘动
支撑她的，是中央那杆雪松，
那伸向广袤天宇的，高高的篷顶
那显示灵魂存在的，确切见证
他，仿佛无牵无挂，
任何一根丝线都不能约束
被无数爱和思想的丝带，松松牵动
沿着指南针的旋转，与世间万物相连，
唯有当一根丝线，微微拉紧
在夏日变幻莫测的气流中，
它，才感觉到最轻微的，一丝束缚。

The Silken Tent

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when a sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease
SAnd its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of its soul
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air,
Is the slightest bondage made aware.

--------------------------------------------------

□ 不锁之门

过了许多年时光，
忽听得敲门声响，
我想起门没有锁，
我怎能将它锁上。

我旋即吹灭了灯，
轻轻走在地板上，
又悄悄举起双手，
对着门祷告思量。

敲门声又响起来！
我看见窗户洞开，
于是偷偷爬上去，
一闪身跳到窗外。

我转身探进脑袋，
喊了一声：进来！
管它敲门的是谁，
有什么可以奇怪。

就这样一声门响，
我居然跳了出来，
投身不锁的世界，
随岁月漂流在外。

The lockless door

It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I though of the door
With no lock to lock.

I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.

But the knock came again.
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.

Back over the sill
I bade a “Come in”
To whatever the knock
At the door may have been.

So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.

-----------------------------

□ 布朗下山

布朗的农场在高高的山上，
冬天一过下午三点半，
每个人都能远远看见，他干活时
手中一闪一闪的提灯。

很多人一定看见了，那天晚上
他发疯似的从山上冲下来
越过耕地，越过墙壁，身不由己
提灯在空中划出道道光环。

那时他正在房屋和谷仓中间
取东西，突然狂风大作
把他撕扯进外面的冰天雪地，
于是他就从一长溜冰上冲了下来！

雪掩埋了墙壁，树木所剩无几：
他看出除非用鞋跟在冰溜上
戳出一个个窟窿，否则无法站住。
虽然他一再努力挺身

想站住而且嘴里嘟囔着什么，
可这时似乎只能顺其自然，
他跺脚却找不到立足处，眼睁睁
从冰溜到冰溜滑下山来。

有时他伸展的手臂如同鸟翼
而他瘦长的身躯像一根
转轴，他像溜冰运动员一样滑下山来，
似乎没丢失尊严和风度。

或快或慢根本由不得他，
或蹲或立他却基本能保持，
如果，他还想着他的衣服不能被蹭坏
那他就得牺牲脖子和脑袋。

他紧紧抓住提灯，不让它脱手。
后来有人说，他曾远远看见
布朗用提灯发出的信号，
“黑天半夜的，谁知道他那

一闪一闪的信号是啥意思！
他是在庆祝什么重大的事吧。
是不是他卖掉了农场，
或者当上了农业协会的主席。”

他跌跌撞撞，东倒西歪，踢溜爬扑；
摔倒时提灯磕碰得噼啪响
（但他硬是没让灯熄灭。）
一直滑到半山腰还想挺住、站住，

不相信自己会这么倒霉。
可后来，他还是听天由命，
彻底放弃了想站住的种种努力
像孩子们溜冰那样飞快地滑下山来。

“好吧——我——”这就是
他说的全部，当他终于停在山下的
河道里，回头望了望那足足
有两英里长的冰溜，一直到住处。

作为一名汽车行业的专家，
我有时会被大家问起
我们的股价是不是已彻底跌落，
这时我往往会认真地回答：

我们北美人还像过去那样。
不要因为布朗爬不上
那一长溜光滑的斜坡，就以为
他会放弃再次回家；

要么甚至想着，他会站在山下
一直等到来年春天冰雪消融
地上的冰溜杳无踪影。
他优雅、体面地顺从了自然规律，

然后按照股票攀升的方式
从山下到山顶一步步走上去，
千万不要为这样的事担心，
因为在这样一个特殊的时间里，

人们的感觉一定非常好
即使脚下走的是羊肠小道
他们也会以为是通天大道——
千万不要为这样的事过分担心；

不然就成不了堂堂男子汉——
一个忙里偷闲的政治家。
当我有理由将这命名为布朗运动
我却让布朗一直站在冰雪中；

但是他的眼睛突然闪闪发亮；
他摇了摇手中的提灯，说：
“回家吧！”然后走向
那条几英里外的回家的盘山公路。

Brown’s Descent

Brown lived at such a lofty farm
That everyone for miles could see
His lantern when he did his chores
In winter after half-past three.

And many must have seen him make
His wild descent from there one night,
Cross lots, cross walls, cross everything,
Describing rings of lantern light.

Between the house and barn the gale
Got him by something he had on
And blew him out on the icy crust
That cased the world, and he was gone!

Walls were all buried, trees were few:
He saw no stay unless he stove
A hole in somewhere with his heel.
But though repeatedly he strove

And stamped and said things to himself,
And sometimes something seemed to yield,
He gained no foothold, but pursued
His journey down from field to field.

Sometimes he came with arms outspread
Like wings, revolving in the scene
Upon his longer axis, and
With no small dignity of mien.

Faster or slower as he chanced,
Sitting or standing as he chose,
According as he feared to risk
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,

He never let the lantern drop.
And some exclaimed who saw afar
The figures he described with it,
“I wonder what those signals are

Brown makes at such an hour of night!
He’s celebrating something strange.
I wonder if he’s sold his farm,
Or been made Master of the Grange.”

He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
He fell and made the lantern rattle
(But saved the light from going out.)
So half-way down he fought the battle

Incredulous of his own bad luck.
And then becoming reconciled
To everything, he gave it up
And came down like a coasting child.

“Well—I—be—” that was all he said,
As standing in the river road,
He looked back up the slippery slope
(Two miles it was) to his abode.

Sometimes as an authority
On motor-cars, I’m asked if I
Should say our stock was petered out,
And this is my sincere reply:

Yankees are what they always were.
Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope
Of getting home again because
He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;

Or even thought of standing there
Until the January thaw
Should take the polish off the crust.
He bowed with grace to natural law,

And then went round it on his feet,
After the manner of our stock;
Not much concerned for those to whom,
At that particular time o’clock,

It must have looked as if the course
He steered was really straight away
From that which he was headed for—
Not much concerned for them, I say:

No more so than became a man—
And politician at odd seasons.
I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold
While I invested him with reasons;

But now he snapped his eyes three times;
Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s
’Bout out!” and took the long way home
By road, a matter of several miles.

------------------------------------------------

□ 哦，上帝，请宽恕……

哦，上帝，请宽恕我跟你开的小玩笑，
我也会原谅你强加于我的大大的恶搞。

Forgive, O Lord …

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.

---------------------------------------------------

□ 灶头鸟

有一位大名鼎鼎的歌手，
总在仲夏时的树林中歌唱，
让坚硬的树木变成纯粹的回声。
他说树叶苍老，对于花
仲夏只是春天的十分之一；
他说大晴天里会有片刻阴天
当梨花、樱桃花在阵雨中落下
最初向往的季节已过完；
下一个秋天还是命名过的秋天。
他说路上的尘土将铺天盖地。
莫非他和众鸟一样会停止歌唱
但他知道在歌唱时不能歌唱。
他那用无语言的语言提出的问题
就是该如何运用事物的衰替。

The Oven Bird

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
he says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

----------------------------------------------

□ 潘神和我们

某日，森林之神潘自林中走出——
其颜面、毛发、瞳孔，
苍老如幽暗、神秘的青苔——
伫立于灿烂阳光下，欣赏他
树木繁茂的丘谷和山峦。

和风中，他手握金色芦笛，
行走在宽阔的草地高处；
凝神俯瞰所有的村村寨寨
不见炊烟也不见房顶。
嘻呼！妙哉！他用力踢了一下蹄子。

他深知平安长存，因无人惊扰
除年年有人来此贫瘠之地，
将半驯化的公牛腌制成肉
或淳朴的小儿肩挑水桶扑踏有声
一无所见亦无传闻。

忽然，他摔掉芦笛，明白
教一首走进新时代之歌难矣，
蓝鸦的尖叫和阳光之外
苍鹰的悲啼是森林之神的标记
于他，已算是神曲，于任何人。

人间旧貌换新颜，转瞬一变：
芦笛已无力摇撼沉甸甸、
密匝匝的树枝，以及
丛生又易碎的野花
笛声已不若懒洋洋、轻飘飘之喘息。

芦笛乃过往之欢娱，
世界已发现存在价值之新规则。
置之于阳光炙热的大地
盖上一朵花，注目，又别过头去——
游戏？游戏？嘻呼！何所戏?

Pan with Us

Pan came out of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,--
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see no little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For a sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.

Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And ravelled a flower and looked away--
Play? Play?--What should he play?

------------------------------------------

□ 收获落叶

铁锨铲起落叶，
如同小匙调羹；
口袋装满落叶，
和气球一样轻。

我整天都在忙，
这热闹的声音，
像兔子在避闪，
似小鹿在飞奔。

我想揽起落叶，
它们哗哗逃窜，
漫过我的手臂，
又遮住我的脸。

可以多拉几车，
堆满我的柴房，
可就是溢出来，
那又能怎么样？

轻得不能再轻，
烧柴都不起焰；
哪里还有颜色，
和泥土再无关。

虽然毫无用处，
收获还是收获，
谁又能够证明，
我这不是收获？

Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?

---------------------------------------

□ 指 令

离开现在难以对付的世界，
返回到一个质朴纯真的年代
破败、颓废、断裂
如同墓园中饱受日晒雨淋的石像，
这里有间不再是房子的房子
它在一座不再是农场的农场上
不再是城镇的城镇中。
通往那里的路回环曲折，
即便有人引领你也照样迷路，
或许老城本是一个采石场——
裸露着巨石的膝盖
早就放弃了掩埋村庄的愿望。
关于它一部古籍这样记载：
除大石上铁轮马车轧出的道道辙印，
突兀的悬崖上条条纹路向八方撑开延伸，
这是巨大的冰川留下的杰作
它曾把双脚紧紧地蹬在北极上。
你不必在意它的某种寒意
到现在还徘徊在豹山的这边；
也不必在意来自四十个窟窿的监视，
像四十只小木桶张开的眼睛，
这并不是什么严酷的考验。
至于树林中的一阵喧哗，响起
风的沙沙，急匆匆地传给叶子，
这喧哗仅仅出自莽撞与无知。
二十多年前，这片树林在哪里？
如今它们却过多地考虑
将几棵婆娑的老苹果树彻底遮掩。
就亲手写一首动听的歌，
歌唱这曾是某人下班回家的小路，
他或许正好空手走在你前头，
或者推辆吱吱呀呀着粮食的手推车。
冒险的终点就是思想的起点，
两种乡村文明早先在这里
交汇，而今全无踪迹。
如果你现在迷失方向找不到自我，
就请紧紧跟随脚下的梯级小路，
竖一块禁止的标牌拒绝世人但除了我。
于是你会感到舒适又自由。
如今剩下的地盘只有这么一小块。
从前这里是孩子们搭起的小屋，
里面堆放的玩具
不过是些松树下摔碎的盘子。
叹息吧，这些小玩意儿居然使他们幸福！
后来这房子不见了踪影，
只剩下一个长满紫丁香的窟窿，
合拢之后像面团上戳出的一个小洞。
这不是玩具房子，而是真正的房子。
你的目的地连同命运的小溪
就在这房子里，
它像凛冽的清泉刚刚离开泉源，
山高路长难以流远。
（我知道山谷下奔流的溪水
会在荆枝上绽开朵朵水花）
我还保存着一只打破了的高脚酒杯，
埋在水边的一棵老树下，
像受了符咒的圣杯使坏人找不到，
如圣马可所说，他们因此不能得救。
（这酒杯是我从玩具房子里偷的）
这就是你的溪水你的沐浴地，
喝一口你将超越混乱，重新醒来。

Directive

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry –
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there's a story in a book about it:
Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels
The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest,
The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.
You must not mind a certain coolness from him
Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.
Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
As for the woods' excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.
Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone's road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you're lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left's no bigger than a harness gall.
First there's the children's house of make-believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.
Your destination and your destiny's
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage.
(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it,
So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn't.
(I stole the goblet from the children's playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

--------------------------------------------------

□ 见证树

在我遥想的长线呈直角
弯曲的树林里，一根铁的脊骨
和一堆真正的岩石被挺起。
远离荒野，在岩石被卷来
并挺起的这个角落
一棵树，一棵伤痕累累的树
给我留下见证树的印象
使我刻骨铭心地谨记
我的证明——并非不受限制。
如此真理得到证明并被确立
尽管充满黑暗和怀疑
纵使被一个困惑的世界所包围。

译注：原诗题目为《山毛榉》。

Beech

Where my imaginary line
Bends square in woods an iron spine
And pile of real rocks have been founded
And off this corner in the wild
Where these are driven in and piled
One tree, by being deeply wounded
Has been impressed as Witness Tree
And made commit to memory
My proof of being not unbounded
Thus truth's established and bourne out
Though circumstanced with dark and doubt
Though by a world of doubt surrounded.

------------------------------------------------

□ 田 夫

我听见他们说：用犁犁田雪。
虽然，他们的意思不是要种植。
除非，在悲痛中嘲弄
在岩石上种植。

译注：Plow的意思，既是用扫雪机扫雪，也是用犁犁地。

Plowmen

I hear men say to plow the snow.
They cannot mean to plant it, though—
Unless in bitterness to mock
At having cultivated rock.

弗罗斯特经典短诗 第三辑：白桦树

□ 补 墙

有一种东西，可能不喜欢墙，
它在墙根下的冻土中鼓起来，
大白天的把墙上的石头摇得滚下来；
墙裂了大口子，两人并肩都能走过。
打猎的来了又是另个样子：
他们搬开一块块石头，总不放回原处，
我只好跟在他们后头不停地修补，
他们还要把兔子从藏身的地儿撵出来，
为了讨好汪汪的狗。那么大的口子
怎么有的，谁也没看见，谁也没听见
可到了春天补墙时，就在那里了。
我给住在山那边的邻居捎话说了；
有一天我们在墙下见了面，四处看了看，
在我们两家中间重新把墙补垒起来。
我们走的时候，中间隔着一道墙，
石头落在谁那边，就由谁去收拾。
它们有的像面包，有的圆得像球。
或许得念个咒才能把它们放稳当：
“老实呆着！在我们转身之前别掉下来！”
搬弄这些东西，我们的手指都磨粗了。
哦，这不过是另一种户外游戏，
一个人站一边。此外没有别的用处：
在墙那块儿，我们根本不需要墙：
他那边儿全是松树，我这边儿是苹果。
我的苹果树永远也不会翻墙过去
在他的松树底下吃松果，我就这么说。
他只是说，“好篱笆才有好邻家。”
春天让我心里挺谋乱，我就想
能不能让他顺着我的思路想：
“为什么好篱笆才有好邻家？是不是说
有牛的人家？可我们这里哪有牛。
其实，在垒墙之前，我就应该知道，
围进来的是什么，围出去的是什么，
而且我会得罪谁，歪着谁。
有一种东西，可能不喜欢墙，
它总想让墙塌。”我会对他说那是“妖精”。
但也不完全是妖精吧，我想还是
由他自己去判断。我看见他在那边
搬一块石头，两只手紧紧抓住，
像一个用石器武装自己的野蛮人。
我觉着，他是在黑暗中摸索，
这黑暗不只是来自树木和树影。
他不去推敲人老几辈说过的东西
他一想起来就感觉对着呢，
于是又说，“好篱笆才有好邻家”。

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper bowlders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the bowlders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only say, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a motion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!” I could say “elves” to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness, as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying.
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

--------------------------------------------------

□ 柴 垛

阴天，我走在冰冻的沼泽中
停下脚步，心想：打这儿往回走吧；
要不，再走远点儿，这样就看到了。
大雪把我困住，就一只脚
不时还能挪动。那些细高细高的树
将视野全划成了直上直下的线条
以致没什么能标明我是在哪儿
说不准究竟我是在这里
还是在别处：反正离家很远就是了。
一只小鸟在我面前飞。当它
飞落时总小心地跟我隔着一棵树
什么也不说，不告诉我它是谁
而我却傻傻地想着它在想什么。
它以为，我走在它后头是为了根儿毛吧——
它尾巴上白色的那根；好像一个
把什么东西都说成是自己的人。
其实，它只要飞到外面就全明白了。
然后是一垛柴，于是我就
把它给忘了，就让它那小小的恐惧
随它走吧，走那条我要走的路
我都没有对它说一声晚安。
为了获得最后的立足处，它绕到后头。
那是一堆枫木， 早已劈开剁好
很整齐地堆着， 四乘四乘八。
像这样的柴垛，我没看到第二个。
在它周围的雪地上 ，没有任何奔跑过的痕迹。
这垛柴，想必不是今年砍的
更不用说去年、前年。
柴已经变成灰色 ，皮也都剥落了
整个柴垛稍微有些下陷 。铁丝
一圈一圈牢牢扎着，像个打好的包裹。
柴垛的一头，是还在生长的小树
支撑着，另一头是斜桩和竖桩
几乎快要倒了。 我只是想 ：
一定是谁要干别的事情， 才把自己
忙活好些天的东西给忘了。
费那么大劲儿砍下，没丢进炉子里烧火
却远远地留在这儿 ，让它慢慢地腐烂
无烟地燃烧，温暖这冰冻的沼泽
或许这样更好点儿。

The Wood-Pile

Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day
I paused and said, “I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther--and we shall see.”
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went down. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather--
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled--and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was grey and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

---------------------------------------------------

□ 割 草

树林边静悄悄，只有一点声音，
那是我的长镰在对大地低语。
它在说些什么？我不知道；
它可能说的是太阳的火热，
也可能在说四下里静悄悄——
所以才把声音压得这么低。
不梦想忙里偷闲的造化，
或仙女手中的大把黄金：
真相之外的东西或许都无力
就说这洼地中割草的爱，
很可能对准的是还未戳起的花
又惊走了绿莹莹的蛇。
事实是最甜蜜的梦只有靠出力。
我的长镰低语，离开一堆堆干草。

Mowing

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

--------------------------------------------------------------

□ 不深也不远

人们走上沙滩
转身朝着一个方向。
他们背对着陆地
整日凝望海洋。

当一只船从远处过来
船身便不断升高；
潮湿的沙滩像明镜
映出一只静立的鸟。

也许陆地变化更多；
但无论真相在哪边——
海水涌上岸来，
人们凝望着海洋。

他们望不太深。
他们望不太远。
但有什么能够遮挡
他们凝望的目光？

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be--
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?

------------------------------------------

□ 雪夜林边停歇

这是谁家的林子我清楚。
他就住在那边的村里头；
他不会知道我停在这儿
望着他的树林积满白雪。

我的小马准抱着个疑团：
干吗停在树林和冰库间？
附近既看不到一户人家
又是一年中最黑的夜晚。

他摇了摇脖子上的铃铛
好像在问出了什么差错。
除此之外，只听见微风
吹拂着毛绒绒的雪花响。

树林真好看，又黑又幽深，
但我说话要算数，
睡觉前还有多少路要赶，
睡觉前还要赶多少路。

Stopping by Woods on a snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promise to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-----------------------------------------------------

□ 未选择的路

金黄的树林里分出两条路，
可惜我不能都去走。
我这个过客，久久的站在那儿，
向着一条极目望去
不知道它在丛林中伸向何处；

而我选择了另一条，或许这样才公平，
说不定还有更好的理由：
因为它长满青草，召唤我去踩踏；
尽管就这一点来说，两条路
好像没什么不同。而且，

那天清晨，两条路都铺满了
落叶，未经脚印污染。
哦，就把第一条留待来日吧！
但一想到条条道路相连接，
恐怕我难以再回来。

也许多年以后在某个地方
我会轻声叹息着说起这件事：
树林中分出两条路，而我——
而我选择了人迹少的那一条，
这，就造成了天大的不同。

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler,long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other,as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh,Ikept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
Idoubted if I should ever come back.

Ishall be telling this with a sgih
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,and I--
Itook the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

--------------------------------------------

□ 出生地

和远处的大山相比
这边似乎没有任何希望，
父亲建造房屋，拢起泉水，
用一圈围墙锁住所有东西。
四周的地面不只长荒草，
它还养育了我们各自的生命。
我们兄弟姐妹一共十二个。
大山看起来喜欢热闹，
不久就认识了我们——
它的微笑总像包含着什么。
直到今天大山还不知道我们的名字。
（何况姑娘们已出嫁随了夫姓。）
它曾把我们推离它的怀抱。
现在它的怀里长满树木。

The Birthplace

Here further up the mountain slope
Than there was every any hope,
My father built, enclosed a spring,
Strung chains of wall round everything,
Subdued the growth of earth to grass,
And brought our various lives to pass.
A dozen girls and boys we were.
The mountain seemed to like the stir,
And made of us a little while--
With always something in her smile.
Today she wouldn't know our name.
(No girl's, of course, has stayed the same.)
The mountain pushed us off her knees.
And now her lap is full of trees.

---------------------------------------

□ 白桦树

弯曲，或左或右：每当我看见
白桦树穿过又直又黑的树木，
我都会想，是个小男孩在荡它们。
但是荡，不会像冰那样使它们
一直弯着。在冬天的早晨，
雨过天晴，你一定会看见白桦树
给冰压弯了。当风轻轻吹过来，
它们表面的冰块就会碎裂，发出
奇妙的喀嚓声，闪射出五颜六色。
很快，太阳会撕下它们的水晶外套，
又在冻硬的雪地上摔得粉碎——
这么一大堆碎玻璃，尽够你扫，
你还以为是天顶的华盖塌了下来。
重压，会使树枝触到地上的枯草，
但是，它们似乎不会折断，不过
一旦被压弯了，就再也直不起来；
很长时间以后，你会在树林里
看见它们还那么弯着，枝叶垂地，
好像女孩子手脚并用趴在地上
将洗过的头发甩到身后，等太阳晒干。
但我要说的是，即便这样，
白桦树弯曲是由于冰的缘故，
我也还会想：是个小男孩荡弯了它们
在他放牛来回路过的时候——
这孩子，离城太远，不能玩棒球，
那他能玩的，就只有自己的发明，
夏天、冬天，他都能自己玩个美。
他把他爸爸的白桦树当马骑，
一棵又一棵，挨个儿来征服，
直到制服了所有的白桦树，
没一棵不弯下，没留一棵还能让他
征服。他在那儿学到的全部
心得，就是爬树时不能太猴急，
这样，树就不会一下子弯到地面上。
他始终都能保持身体的平衡，
稳稳地爬向树梢，爬得小心翼翼，
就像你平时往酒杯里斟啤酒，
想来个满杯，甚至稍稍冒出点儿。
然后，他嗖地一下蹬脚跳开，
踢着双腿落下，蹲到地上来。
我过去就是这样一个荡树的孩子
现在，做梦都想回到那种日子。
那总是在我无力思考的时候，
而人生太像一座让人迷路的森林，
你的脸撞上了蜘蛛网，又痛又痒，
忽然一只眼又流泪，因为
一根小树枝在它睁着时抽了它一下。
我真想离开这人世一时半会儿，
然后再回来，重新过日子。
但愿命运这东西别误会我的意思，
只成全我心愿的一半，把我卷走
永远回不来。这人间最适合爱，
因为我不知道，还有什么更好的去处。
就让我爬上一棵白桦树离去：
攀着黑黑的树枝，沿雪白的树干直上，
直到那树再也支撑不住，
弯下来，把我重新送回到地面。
去一下又回来，这样挺好的。
人能做的事，比荡白桦树好不到哪去。

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

--------------------------------------------

□ 火与冰

有人说世界将毁于火，
有人说毁于冰。
依据我个人的体验
我赞同火和倾向火的人。
但若注定要毁两次，
那么我有更深的体会
要说破坏
冰的威力同样大
说毁于冰的说了算。

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

---------------------------------------

□ 树在我的窗前

树在我的窗前，
天黑我掩窗扇，
却未拉上窗帘，
于我和树之间。

我见树冠如梦，
树叶婆娑起舞，
并非高谈阔论，
显露深奥哲理。

树在暗中摇曳，
若它见我入梦，
定当见我难眠，
独自彷徨踱步。

那日命运作弄，
将我和树相连，
树知外面风雨，
我知个中变幻。

Tree At My Window

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

--------------------------------------

□ 摘完苹果

梯子搭在树上，竖起两个尖
指向空荡的天，
下面，地上一只木桶
还未装满，或许
还有两三个苹果
我摘不到手。不过这会儿，
我算是摘完苹果了。
天色已晚，冬天像在催眠
苹果的香味：我已经打瞌睡了。
我擦擦眼睛，却擦不掉奇景：
这就像今天早晨，
我从水槽里揭起一层薄冰
把它举到眼前，观看一个
白霜压草的世界。
冰化了，我由它掉下、粉碎
可是，在它掉下之前，
我早已昏昏然，快要入睡。
我还说得出，那是
怎样的一个梦：
膨胀得好大的苹果，忽隐忽现，
一会在枝头，一会在花间，
红褐色的斑点，清清楚楚。
好酸痛呀我的脚板
梯子的横档一直顶着它们。
树枝弯下时，梯子好像也在摇晃。
一声声轰隆，那是
一堆堆苹果正往地窖里送。
我不知道自己摘过多少次苹果了
早已厌倦了所谓的收成。
成千上万的苹果，伸手就能摘到，
需要轻轻拿，轻轻放
就是不能掉地上，因为一掉地，
即使没碰伤，没扎破，
也只好送给人家，去做酒，
算是白忙活了。
可见，打扰我瞌睡的是什么，
不管这算不算瞌睡。
如果土拨鼠还未走远，
听我讲睡梦怎样来到我身边，
它就会告诉我，这像不像
它的睡眠，
或者，这不过是人的睡眠。

After Apple-Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing dear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

---------------------------------------------

□ 一只小鸟

我希望一只鸟能够走开，
不要整天在我门前歌唱；

我一旦似乎不能再忍受，
就会从门口向它拍拍手。

过错有几分是在我这边。
鸟自己的曲调无可指责。

当然这里面一定有问题。
或许希望总使歌声停止。

A Minor Bird

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

-------------------------------

□ 城中小溪

农场还在那里，虽不愿和
城市街道相同，却不得不戴上
一个门牌号码。那像肘状
绕过房子的小溪怎样了呢？
我如同一个了解小溪的人问着，
它的力量和冲动，我曾将手指
浸入水中，让它从指缝中流过，
将花朵掷进去测试它的涌流。
还在生长的蓝草，或许已被水泥
固定在城中的人行道上；
苹果树被送进炉底的火焰中。
湿木材会不会同样服务于溪水？
此外该怎样处置那不再需要的
永久性力量？将大量的垃圾废品倾倒
在源头，使其止住？溪流翻滚
跌入石头下面幽深的下水道
在恶臭与黑暗中依然存在、涌流——
它做这些，也许并不为别的
什么，只是为了忘记恐惧。
除了远古地图没谁会知道
一条如此流动的小溪。但我怀疑
它是否想永远呆在下面，而不显现
曾经奔流的身影，使这新建的
城市，既不能工作也无法入眠。

A Brook in the City

The firm house lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear A number in.
But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was
thrown Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run -
And all for nothing it hd ever done
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.

-------------------------------------------------

□ 闲谈时间

当一位朋友在路上喊我
而且减慢了马儿意味深长的步伐，
在那无人注意的小山上
我并没有停手四处张望
只是埋头应了声：“干什么？”
不，这里没有工夫闲谈。
我将锄头插入松土，
刃底立起足有五英尺，
然后缓慢地走开了，去石墙那边
为了一个人来这儿坐坐。

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, 'What is it?
No, not as there is a time talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod:I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

弗罗斯特经典长诗 山

山，像是暗中紧握着小镇。
有一次，临睡前，我望了很长时间的山：
我注意到，它黑沉沉的身躯戳上了天，
使我看不到西天上的星。
它，似乎离我很近：就像
我身后的一面墙，在风中庇护着我。
拂晓前，当我为了看个新鲜而向前走，
我发现山和小镇之间，
有田野，一条河，以及对岸，大片的田野。
那时，正是枯水期，河水
漫过鹅卵石哗哗地流去，
但从它流的样子，仍可想见春天的泛滥；
一片漂亮的草地在河谷中闪现，草里
有沙子，和被剥去皮的浮木。
我穿过河流，转悠着走向山。
在那里，我遇见了一个面色苍白的男人
他的牛拉着沉重的车子缓慢地走着，
就是拦住他，让他停下来也没关系。

“这是什么镇？”我问。

“这儿？卢恩堡。”

看来，是我搞错了：我逗留的小镇，
在桥那边，不属于山，
晚上我感觉到的，只是它朦胧的影子。

“你的镇子在哪儿？是不是很远？”

“这边没有镇，只有零星几个农场。
上次选举，我们才六十个人投票。
我们的人数，总不能自然而然地多起来：
那家伙，把地方占完了！”他扬了扬手中的小棍
指着挺立在那边的山。
山腰的牧场，向上延伸了一小段，
然后是前面有一排树木的墙：
再往上，就只能看见树梢，悬崖峭壁
在树叶中间若隐若现。
一条干涸的溪谷在大树枝下
一直伸进牧场里。

“那看上去像条路。
是不是从这儿能上到山顶？——
今天早上不行，只能换个时间：
我现在该回去吃饭了。”

“我不建议你从这儿上山。
没有什么正路，那些
上过山的，都是从拉德家那儿往上爬的。
得往回走十五里。你可不能走错了：
他们在去年冬天把远处的一些树砍掉了。
我倒是想捎你去，可惜不顺路。”

“你，从来没爬过它？”

“我以前上到过山腰
打过鹿，钓过鱼。有条小溪
的源头就在那儿的什么位置——我听说
在正顶端，最高处——真是怪事。
不过，这小溪会让你感兴趣，
因为，它在夏天总是冷的，冬天却暖。
就说冬天，那水雾好比
公牛在喘气，壮观得太，
水汽沿着两岸的灌木丛蔓延，使它们长了
一寸多厚的针状霜毛——
那样子你知道。然后就是，阳光在上面闪闪发亮！”

“这倒是天下一景
从这座山上望去——如果一直到山顶
没有那么多树就好了。”我透过浓密的树叶
看见阳光和树影中大片的花岗岩台阶，
心想，爬山时膝盖会碰在那上面
身后，还有十几丈的悬崖深渊；
转过身子，坐在上面向下俯视，
胳膊肘就会碰到岩缝里长出的羊齿草。

“这我不敢说。但泉水有，
正好在山顶，几乎像一个喷泉。
应该值得去看一看。”

“或许，它真的在那儿。
你，从来没看到过？”

“我想，它在那儿这个
事儿不值得怀疑，虽说我从来没见过。
它或许不是在正顶端：
山间的水源，不一定非得从
最高处那么长一路下来，
从大老远爬上来的人或许不会注意
其实，头顶上还有很远。
有一次，我对一个爬山的人说
你去看看，再告诉我它到底是什么样子。”

“他说了什么？”

“他说，在爱尔兰
的什么地方，山顶上有个湖。”

“湖是另一回事。泉水呢？”

“他爬得不够高，没看见。
所以我才不建议你从这边爬——
他就是从这儿爬的。我总想上去
亲眼看看，但是你知道：
一个人在这山里呆了一辈子
爬山就没有意思。
我爬它干什么？要我穿上工作服，
拿着根大棒子，去赶在挤奶时间
吃草还没回来的奶牛？
或者，提把猎枪，去对付迷路的黑熊？
反正，不能只为爬上去而爬。”

“我不想爬，也不会爬——
不为上山。那山，叫什么？”

“我们都叫它霍尔，不知道对不对。”

“能不能绕着它走？会不会太远？”

“你可以开车转转，但要在卢恩堡境内，
不过，你能做的也就是这些，
因为卢恩堡的边界线紧紧贴着山脚。
霍尔就是镇区，镇区就是霍尔——
一些房屋星星点点散布在山脚下，
就像是悬崖上崩裂的圆石头，
朝远处多滚了一截子。”

“你刚才说，泉水冬天暖、夏天冷？”

“我根本不认为，水有什么变化。
你和我都清楚，说它暖
是跟冷比，说它冷，是跟暖比。
真有意思，同一件事，就看你怎么说。”

“你一辈子都在这儿住？”

“自从霍尔
的大小还不如一个——”说的什么，我没听见。
他用细长的棍子轻轻碰了碰牛鼻子
和后面的肋骨，把绳子朝自己拽了拽，
吆喝几声，然后慢悠悠地走远了。

The Mountain

The mountain held the town as in a shadow
I saw so much before I slept there once:
I noticed that I missed stars in the west,
Where its black body cut into the sky.
Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall
Behind which I was sheltered from a wind.
And yet between the town and it I found,
When I walked forth at dawn to see new things,
Were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields.
The river at the time was fallen away,
And made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones;
But the signs showed what it had done in spring;
Good grass-land gullied out, and in the grass
Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark.
I crossed the river and swung round the mountain.
And there I met a man who moved so slow
With white-faced oxen in a heavy cart,
It seemed no hand to stop him altogether.

“What town is this?” I asked.

“This? Lunenburg.”

Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn,
Beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain,
But only felt at night its shadowy presence.

“Where is your village? Very far from here?”

“There is no village--only scattered farms.
We were but sixty voters last election.
We can't in nature grow to many more:
That thing takes all the room!”He moved his goad.
The mountain stood there to be pointed at.
Pasture ran up the side a little way,
And then there was a wall of trees with trunks:
After that only tops of trees, and cliffs
Imperfectly concealed among the leaves.
A dry ravine emerged from under boughs
Into the pasture.

“That looks like a path.
Is that the way to reach the top from here?--
Not for this morning, but some other time:
I must be getting back to breakfast now.”

“I don't advise your trying from this side.
There is no proper path, but those that have
Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd's.
That's five miles back. You can't mistake the place:
They logged it there last winter some way up.
I'd take you, but I'm bound the other way.”

“You've never climbed it?”

“I've been on the sides
Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There's a brook
That starts up on it somewhere--I've heard say
Right on the top, tip-top--a curious thing.
But what would interest you about the brook,
It's always cold in summer, warm in winter.
One of the great sights going is to see
It steam in winter like an ox's breath,
Until the bushes all along its banks
Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles--
You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!”

“There ought to be a view around the world
From such a mountain--if it isn't wooded
Clear to the top.”I saw through leafy screens
Great granite terraces in sun and shadow,
Shelves one could rest a knee on getting up--
With depths behind him sheer a hundred feet;
Or turn and sit on and look out and down,
With little ferns in crevices at his elbow.

“As to that I can't say. But there's the spring,
Right on the summit, almost like a fountain.
That ought to be worth seeing.”

“If it's there.
You never saw it?”

“I guess there's no doubt
About its being there. I never saw it.
It may not be right on the very top:
It wouldn't have to be a long way down
To have some head of water from above,
And a good distance down might not be noticed
By anyone who'd come a long way up.
One time I asked a fellow climbing it
To look and tell me later how it was.”

“What did he say?”

“He said there was a lake
Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top.”

“But a lake's different. What about the spring?”

“He never got up high enough to see.
That's why I don't advise your trying this side.
He tried this side. I've always meant to go
And look myself, but you know how it is:
It doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain
You've worked around the foot of all your life.
What would I do? Go in my overalls,
With a big stick, the same as when the cows
Haven't come down to the bars at milking time?
Or with a shotgun for a stray black bear?
Twouldn't seem real to climb for climbing it.”

“I shouldn't climb it if I didn't want to--
Not for the sake of climbing. What's its name?”

“We call it Hor: I don't know if that's right.”

“Can one walk around it? Would it be too far?”

“You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg,
But it's as much as ever you can do,
The boundary lines keep in so close to it.
Hor is the township, and the township's Hor--
And a few houses sprinkled round the foot,
Like boulders broken off the upper cliff,
Rolled out a little farther than the rest.”

“Warm in December, cold in June, you say?”

“I don't suppose the water's changed at all.
You and I know enough to know it's warm
Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm.
But all the fun's in how you say a thing.”

“You've lived here all your life?”

“Ever since Hor
Was no bigger than a----”What, I did not hear.
He drew the oxen toward him with light touches
Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank,
Gave them their marching orders and was moving.

弗罗斯特经典长诗 蓝莓

“你应该见过，我在去村子的路上
看到的，就在我今天穿过莫德森牧场：
蓝莓像你的大拇指一样大，
真正的天蓝色，沉甸甸的，像是等着
掉进第一个来这儿的桶里去打鼓！
全都熟了，并不是有的青绿
有的成熟！你应该看见过！”

“我不知道，你说的是牧场的哪块儿。”

“你知道，他们在那儿砍过树——让我想想——
是两年前——好像不对——或者
比这还要晚？——反正，接下来是秋天
大火蔓延，把那里烧得只剩下墙壁。”

“不对吧？那里还没长出灌木什么的。
尽管那条路，总会长满蓝莓：
现在，在松树下的任何地方，还看不到
它们的一点点儿影子，
要是，没有松树的话，你就是把
整个牧场都烧光，哪怕不剩一片羊齿草
或者蒿子，更别说一根树枝，
可是很快，那些莓子就会长出来
像魔术师的把戏一样，让人难以理解。”

“它们，一定是用炭灰给自己上肥呢。
有时，我在那儿就闻到了煤烟味儿。
毕竟，它们真是给黑檀树笼罩着：
那种蓝，好像是风吹来的薄雾，
但是，如果你用手一碰，它就变得黯淡了，
还不如制革的人采的那种棕褐色。”

“莫德森知道他有这些莓子吗，你想？”

“可能吧，但他不会在意，他不会
离开，丢下他的红眼小鸟不管。
当然，他不会弄出个什么理由
不让别人去他那里——他就是这种人。”

“我想，你在那儿没见到劳恩吧。”

“不，我正好见到他了。你不知道，
我正要穿过那片蓝莓
再绕过围墙，走上大路时，
就见他赶着马车经过，
拉着他那叽叽喳喳的一家子，
但是劳恩，这个当爸的，他停下是为拾掇车。”

“他看见你了？然后，怎么样？他不高兴？”

“他，只是对我连连点头。
你知道，他经过时总这么客气。
但是，他显然在想一件重要的事，
——我从他的眼里能看出来——：
‘我的莓子还在那儿呢，我猜它们
已经熟透了。唉，我该为这事感到惭愧。’”

“他这个人，比我能叫上名字的人都要勤俭。”

“或许，他真的勤俭；这也应该，
不是有那么多张小嘴等着他喂呢嘛。
人家说，他喂给孩子的都是野莓子，
喂鸟似的。他家在别处还储存了不少。
他们常年都吃这个，吃不了的
他就放到商店里卖掉，给娃买鞋穿。”

“谁会在意别人说什么？这样挺好，
只得到老天爷愿意赏赐的，
而没逼着他去耙地、犁地。”

“我希望，你改天瞧瞧他那么深地哈腰——
还有那些小家伙的脸。他们没一个回头，
看上去既严肃又荒谬。”

“我要是知道，他们知道的一半就好了，
就是，所有的莓子和其它的果子在哪里，
或许，酸果蔓长在沼泽里，悬钩子则在
满是鹅卵石的山顶上，想摘就去摘。
有一天，我碰到他们，他们每个人都把花
插在像阵雨一样新鲜的莓子里；
一些奇怪的种类——他们说这东西没名字。”

“我给你说过，我们来这儿不久，
我几乎使劳恩这个穷鬼变得乐观起来。
就说那次吧，我一个人去他那儿，
问他，知不知道有什么野莓子
可以摘。这狗日的，他说，如果他知道
倒是很乐意说出来，但是年景不好。
有个地方长过一些——现在，全不见了。
他就是不说它们长在哪儿。他还说：
‘我保证——我保证’——尽量客气，好让我信。
他对站在门里的妻子说，‘让我想想，
娃他妈，我们不知道哪里有莓子，对不对？’
这就是他那张坦率的脸所说出的全部。”

“如果，他认为所有的莓子都是为他长的，
那他就错了。要是有兴致，
今年，我们就到莫德森家的牧场那儿去摘。
我们早上去，就是说，如果天气好，
阳光暖暖地照着，那蔓一定还是湿的。
已经好长时间没摘莓子，我几乎忘了
我们以前是咋样摘莓子的：我们总是
四处看看，然后像轮流唱歌一样隐现，
谁也看不见谁，也听不到声，
除非当你说，我把一只鸟
吓得飞离了窝，我就说，那是你干的。
‘好，反正是我们中的一个。’像是在抱怨
那只鸟绕着我们打转。然后
我们摘了一会儿莓子，直到我担心你走远了
甚至把你弄丢了。因为距离远
我大声喊着你，声音传了出去，
但你答应的时候，声音却很低
就像在说话——你在我旁边站起身来，记得不？”

“也许，我们在那儿找不到乐趣——
不太可能，因为劳恩的孩子都要去。
他们明天就去，甚至今天晚上。
他们不会对我们客气——也说不定——
因为，在他们眼里，别人没有权力
去他们采莓子的那块儿。但是，我们不管这些。
你应该见过，莓子在雨中是什么样子，
在层层枝叶中间，蓝莓和水珠混在一起，
就像两种珍宝，像小偷一眼瞅见的。”

译注：
1、蓝 莓：学名越橘，果实为浆果，呈蓝色，近圆形，营养丰富，原产和主产于美国。
2、羊齿草：学名蕨类，古生代植物（后代大多已经灭绝），《诗经：召南•草虫》有“言采其蕨”，古代也叫蕨萁、月尔等。
3、悬钩子：《尔雅》中称木莓、山莓，果实为浆果，圆锥形或球形，可入药。

Blueberries

“You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!
And all ripe together, not some of them green
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!”

“I don't know what part of the pasture you mean.”

“You know where they cut off the woods--let me see--
It was two years ago--or no!--can it be
No longer than that?--and the following fall
The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall.”

“Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow.
That's always the way with the blueberries, though:
There may not have been the ghost of a sign
Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine,
But get the pine out of the way, you may burn
The pasture all over until not a fern
Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick,
And presto, they're up all around you as thick
And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick.”

“It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.
And after all really they're ebony skinned:
The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind,
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned.”

“Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?”

“He may and not care and so leave the chewink
To gather them for him--you know what he is.
He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his
An excuse for keeping us other folk out.”

“I wonder you didn't see Loren about.”

“The best of it was that I did. Do you know,
I was just getting through what the field had to show
And over the wall and into the road,
When who should come by, with a democrat-load
Of all the young chattering Lorens alive,
But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive.”

“He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?”

“He just kept nodding his head up and down.
You know how politely he always goes by.
But he thought a big thought--I could tell by his eye--
Which being expressed, might be this in effect:
‘I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,
To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame. ’”

“He's a thriftier person than some I could name.”

“He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need,
With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed?
He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say,
Like birds. They store a great many away.
They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat
They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet.”

“Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live,
Just taking what Nature is willing to give,
Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow.”

“I wish you had seen his perpetual bow--
And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned,
And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.”

“I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
I met them one day and each had a flower
Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower;
Some strange kind--they told me it hadn't a name.”

“I've told you how once not long after we came,
I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth
By going to him of all people on earth
To ask if he knew any fruit to be had
For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad
To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.
There had been some berries--but those were all gone.
He didn't say where they had been. He went on:
'I'm sure--I'm sure'--as polite as could be.
He spoke to his wife in the door, ‘Let me see,
Mame, we don't know any good berrying place? ’
It was all he could do to keep a straight face. ”

“If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him,
He'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim,
We'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year.
We'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear,
And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet.
It's so long since I picked I almost forget
How we used to pick berries: we took one look round,
Then sank out of sight like trolls underground,
And saw nothing more of each other, or heard,
Unless when you said I was keeping a bird
Away from its nest, and I said it was you.
'Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew
Around and around us. And then for a while
We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile,
And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout
Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out,
For when you made answer, your voice was as low
As talking--you stood up beside me, you know.”

“We sha'n't have the place to ourselves to enjoy--
Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy.
They'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night.
They won't be too friendly--they may be polite--
To people they look on as having no right
To pick where they're picking. But we won't complain.
You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain,
The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,
Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.”

弗罗斯特经典长诗 野葡萄

从什么树上摘不到无花果？
难道葡萄不能从桦树上采摘？
你对葡萄、桦树也就知道这么多。
作为某个秋天，一个把自己挂在
葡萄中间却从桦树上下来的女孩，
我当然知道葡萄长在什么树上。
我来到世上，和任何人没什么两样，
然后长成个有点像男孩的女孩
所以我哥哥不能老把我留在家。
但是，我挂在葡萄中间晃荡的身世
早已因那突如其来的恐慌而消散，
而且就如欧里娣克被找到那样
终于从半空平平安安地回到地面；
那么，我这条命就是凭空捡来的，
我喜欢谁就可以为谁白白浪费掉。
因此，如果你看到我一年过两个生日，
并且以为自己有两个不同的年龄，
那么其中一个比实际的我要小五岁——

一天，我哥哥带我到一片林间空地
他知道那里有一棵白桦树孤独站立，
顶着一只尖尖的叶子做的薄头巾，
长长的枝条像头发一样披在身后，
脖子上缠绕着一串串葡萄做的项链。
自从去年见过一次我就认得葡萄了。
开始是一嘟噜，然后是数不清的一串串
在白桦树的枝叶间若隐若现，
就像曾经在莱夫的周围若隐若现；
只可惜好多都长在我够不着的高处，
就像我小时候一心向往的月亮，要想
幸福地拥有它，就必须往上爬。

我哥哥爬了上去；一开始他摘些
葡萄，胡乱扔下来
害得我在香蕨木和绣线菊间找来找去；
这下他就有时间在树上放开吃，
但也许这对一个男孩来说不够爽，
于是他为了让我自个摘自个吃，
便又往高处爬，再将树枝踩压向地面
送进我手里，让我自己摘。
“赶紧抓住，我要去压另一根。
记住，我一走开你得牢牢抓住。”
我说我抓紧树枝了，其实不对。
应该反过来说，是树枝抓紧了我。
就在我哥哥离开的一刹那，树枝突然
把我高高钓起，就好像我是鱼，
树枝是鱼杆。这时我听见我哥哥
大喊大叫，声音都变了：“松手！
傻丫头！你连这都不会？松手！”
而我却像婴孩一样牢牢抓住树枝
这本能几乎在树上获得了遗传。
在远古时代，那些未开化的妈妈
曾让她们的孩子扯着双手吊在树上
不知道是为了锻炼还是晒太阳
（这你需要请教那些进化论专家）——
而我不敢对生命有任何抱怨。
我哥哥想把我逗笑，让我别紧张。
“你在那些葡萄中间干什么？
不用怕。几枝葡萄伤不了你。我是说，
如果你不摘它们，它们也不会摘你。”
这时我如果再摘真是不要命啦！
当时我几乎接受了这样一种哲学：
自己吊（活）也让别人吊（活）。
“这下你可尝到酸葡萄的滋味了，”
我哥哥继续说，“它们本以为长在树上
远离了贪吃的狐狸，而且长到了
出其不意的地方——桦树上，
狐狸根本想不到会长在那里——
即使看见了想去摘，也够不着——
可就在这时，咱俩来这儿摘葡萄了。
但是有一点证明你比那些葡萄强：
葡萄只是一根，你却有两只手
要想把你摘下来，确实更不易。”

帽子、鞋子，吧嗒吧嗒地掉下去，
我却依然吊在树上摇晃。我扬起脸
闭着眼睛不看太阳，耳朵
也不想听哥哥瞎胡说。“下来，”他说，
“我会接住你。这不是太高。”
（照他的身高来看是不太高。）
“下来吧，要不然我就把你摇下来。”
我没有吭声，尽管身体摇摇欲坠，
纤细的手指拉伸着，如同五弦琴。
“唉，你要是不这么死心眼就好了。
那就抓紧，让我想想别的招。
我再把树枝压弯到地上让你下来。”
当时是怎么下来的，我闹不明白；
只记得我穿长袜的脚一触到地面，
地球似乎在我脚下重新旋转起来，
我只顾看着我变得僵硬的手指头，
老半天才伸直，拍掉满手的树皮渣。
我哥哥对我说，“你有脑子没有？
下次遇到这种情况多长个心眼儿，
要不然，树枝又会把你吊到半空去。”

其实，那并不是因为我没有脑子，
就像我对这个世界并非一无所知——
虽然我哥哥从来比我懂得多。
当时我还不懂得急中生智学习知识；
还没有学会如何松手放弃，
就像直到现在我还不能多长个心眼儿，
总感觉没这兴趣，没这必要，
我能意识到这一点。是脑子，不是心眼。
我仍然需要活着，和任何人一样，
总想抛开那些让人头疼的问题——
这样就能个睡安稳觉；但是没什么
教导我必须多长个心眼儿。

Wild Grapes
　　
WHATtree may not the fig be gathered from?
The grape may not be gathered from the birch?
It’s all you know the grape, or know the birch.
As a girl gathered from the birch myself
Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn,
I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of.
I was born, I suppose, like anyone,
And grew to be a little boyish girl
My brother could not always leave at home.
But that beginning was wiped out in fear 10
The day I swung suspended with the grapes,
And was come after like Eurydice
And brought down safely from the upper regions;
And the life I live now’s an extra life
I can waste as I please on whom I please.
So if you see me celebrate two birthdays,
And give myself out of two different ages,
One of them five years younger than I look—
　　
One day my brother led me to a glade
Where a white birch he knew of stood alone,
Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves,
And heavy on her heavy hair behind,
Against her neck, an ornament of grapes.
Grapes, I knew grapes from having seen them last year.
One bunch of them, and there began to be
Bunches all round me growing in white birches,
The way they grew round Leif the Lucky’s German;
Mostly as much beyond my lifted hands, though,
As the moon used to seem when I was younger,
And only freely to be had for climbing.
My brother did the climbing; and at first
Threw me down grapes to miss and scatter
And have to hunt for in sweet fern and hardhack;
Which gave him some time to himself to eat,
But not so much, perhaps, as a boy needed.
So then, to make me wholly self-supporting,
He climbed still higher and bent the tree to earth
And put it in my hands to pick my own grapes.
“Here, take a tree-top, I’ll get down another.
Hold on with all your might when I let go.”
I said I had the tree. It wasn’t true.
The opposite was true. The tree had me.
The minute it was left with me alone
It caught me up as if I were the fish
And it the fishpole. So I was translated
To loud cries from my brother of “Let go!
Don’t you know anything, you girl? Let go!”
But I, with something of the baby grip
Acquired ancestrally in just such trees
When wilder mothers than our wildest now
Hung babies out on branches by the hands
To dry or wash or tan, I don’t know which,
(You’ll have to ask an evolutionist)—
I held on uncomplainingly for life.
My brother tried to make me laugh to help me.
“What are you doing up there in those grapes?
Don’t be afraid. A few of them won’t hurt you.
I mean, they won’t pick you if you don’t them.”
Much danger of my picking anything!
By that time I was pretty well reduced
To a philosophy of hang-and-let-hang.
“Now you know how it feels,” my brother said,
“To be a bunch of fox-grapes, as they call them,
That when it thinks it has escaped the fox
By growing where it shouldn’t—on a birch,
Where a fox wouldn’t think to look for it—
And if he looked and found it, couldn’t reach it—
Just then come you and I to gather it.
Only you have the advantage of the grapes
In one way: you have one more stem to cling by,
And promise more resistance to the picker.”
　　
One by one I lost off my hat and shoes,
And still I clung. I let my head fall back,
And shut my eyes against the sun, my ears
Against my brother’s nonsense; “Drop,” he said,
“I’ll catch you in my arms. It isn’t far.”
(Stated in lengths of him it might not be.)
“Drop or I’ll shake the tree and shake you down.”
Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,
My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings.
“Why, if she isn’t serious about it!
Hold tight awhile till I think what to do.
I’ll bend the tree down and let you down by it.”
I don’t know much about the letting down;
But once I felt ground with my stocking feet
And the world came revolving back to me,
I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers,
Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off.
My brother said: “Don’t you weigh anything?
Try to weigh something next time, so you won’t
Be run off with by birch trees into space.”
　　
It wasn’t my not weighing anything
So much as my not knowing anything—
My brother had been nearer right before.
I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart—nor need,
That I can see. The mind—is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live, 100
To wish in vain to let go with the mind—
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.

弗罗斯特经典长诗 斧 把

□ 斧 把

还记得上回，有一根桤木枝忽然
从我身后抓住了我抡起的斧头。
不过那是在树林里，像是为了
阻止我去砍另一棵桤木的根，
毫无疑问，那就是根桤木枝。
但这次是个大活人，巴普迪斯特
一个雪天，他悄悄溜进我家院子
站在我身后，当时我正攥紧斧把
劈柴，不是在砍什么树。
刹时间我将斧头高高抡起，他
忽然从后面抓住斧头，稍停片刻
好让我回过神来，然后从我手里
拿了过去——我索性松手。
我跟他还不太熟悉，不知道他
这么干居心何在。他可能
有什么话要对我说，而且以为
对待坏邻居就该让他手无寸铁。
但是，他用法国味十足的英语
向我谈起的——不是我——只是
我的斧头；而我正担心
我手里的家伙有问题。事实是
我已买了人家的坏斧把——
“机器加工的，”他边说边用
厚厚的指甲在斧把的天然纹理上滑过，
手指像越过美圆上的两条线那样
飞快奔过人工拉制的蛇纹。
“只要磕到什么，斧把立马断。
斧头不知道会飞到哪儿去！”
言之有理，可这跟他有什么关系？

“上我家来，我给你换根
结实的斧把——绝对正宗的山桃木。
我亲手砍的！保证耐用！”

想在我这儿做买卖？可听起来不像。

“你说你什么时候来？
我分文不取。今晚怎样？”

今晚？那就今晚。

越过厨房里烧得旺旺的火炉，
我受到的欢迎和在别处毫无二致。
巴普迪斯特深知我为什么上门。
只要他不激动得讲出来，我就装作
不知道我来把他高兴成什么样儿，
（他或许真的高兴），他清楚
这下我就必须作出个判断，他那些
不为人知的关于斧头的知识
在邻居们眼里是不是一文不值。
这法国佬一心想融入我们新英格兰人，
难的是，他起码得有点儿本事！

巴普迪斯特太太进来坐在一把摇椅上
前后摇晃，那椅子像这个世界
一样在暗影中忽出忽进；
你几乎看不清她，因为她摇晃出
一连串的幻影，不知哪个是真。
她向前摇，差点跌进炉火的烈焰中，
幸亏她及时挺身，连人带椅子
猛然站了起来；然后退回去继续摇。
“她英语讲不大好——真糟糕。”
可我担心，巴普迪斯特太太向我
又向他丈夫微笑，似乎她明白
我们在讲什么，只是假装不懂。
巴普迪斯特也担心，但他更担心
他自己，因为，要是她那样摇下去，
他就别指望兑现今天早上和我
商量好的约定，好让我不去猜测
他这个人是不是言而无信。

巴普迪斯特兴冲冲地抱出他的斧把，
简直一大堆，因为，他希望
我能挑最好的，或者忍痛割爱——
不问我想要哪根，他拿出的这些
斧把，都有他能指出的好来，
任何一根都不能让我白白浪费。
他喜欢把斧把削得像鞭杆那么细，
上面全无节疤，能像在膝上
试长剑那样来回弯曲比划。
在动刀磨刮之前，他指给我看
一根好斧把到底会有怎样的纹理，
那不是人工拉制的，而是
自然而然，这种斧把才不怕
用力挥舞。他按住斧把从头到尾
来回打磨，直到变得亮光闪闪。
然后，他试着将它楔入斧孔中。
“嘿！嘿嘿！”他惊诧道，“刚刚好！”
巴普迪斯特知道怎样把短活儿拉长，
因为他爱干，但不是磨洋工。

你可知道，我们谈的是知识的问题？
巴普迪斯特竭力为不让孩子
或尽量不让孩子上学的事辩解——
说学校、孩子和我们对教育
的怀疑都和他那些斧把的天然纹理
有关，和他用心地磨刮它们有关，
并破例带我参观他的里屋。
难道，我这个人值得信任才受到邀请？
是不是，怀疑教育的人的正确与否
取决于这种人所受的教育？

但现在巴普迪斯特已拂净膝上的木屑，
将斧头头朝上把朝下竖了起来，
直直竖立，不是没有摇晃，就像
伊甸园里直起身子作恶的蛇——
头重脚轻，跟他又肥又短的手
一样笨拙，蓝幽幽的斧角
微微下倾——带一点法国风味。
巴普迪斯特仰身斜眯着眼睛打量斧头：
“你看它抬头挺胸嚣张得不行！”

The Ax-helve

I've known ere now an interfering branch
Of alder catch my lifted ax behind me.
But that was in the woods, to hold my hand
From striking at another alder's roots,
And that was, as I say, an alder branch.
This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day
Behind me on the snow in my own yard
Where I was working at the chopping block,
And cutting nothing not cut down already.
He caught my ax expertly on the rise,
When all my strength put forth was in his favor,
Held it a moment where it was, to calm me,
Then took it from me — and I let him take it.
I didn't know him well enough to know
What it was all about. There might be something
He had in mind to say to a bad neighbor
He might prefer to say to him disarmed.
But all he had to tell me in French-English
Was what he thought of— not me, but my ax;
Me only as I took my ax to heart.
It was the bad ax-helve some one had sold me —
“Made on machine,' he said, plowing the grain
With a thick thumbnail to show how it ran
Across the handle's long-drawn serpentine,
Like the two strokes across a dollar sign.
“You give her 'one good crack, she's snap raght off.
Den where's your hax-ead flying t'rough de hair?”
Admitted; and yet, what was that to him?

“Come on my house and I put you one in
What's las' awhile — good hick'ry what's grow crooked,
De second growt' I cut myself—tough, tough!”

Something to sell? That wasn't how it sounded.

“Den when you say you come? It's cost you nothing.
To-naght?”

As well to-night as any night.

Beyond an over-warmth of kitchen stove
My welcome differed from no other welcome.
Baptiste knew best why I was where I was.
So long as he would leave enough unsaid,
I shouldn't mind his being overjoyed
(If overjoyed he was) at having got me
Where I must judge if what he knew about an ax
That not everybody else knew was to count
For nothing in the measure of a neighbor.
Hard if, though cast away for life with Yankees,
A Frenchman couldn't get his human rating!

Mrs. Baptiste came in and rocked a chair
That had as many motions as the world:
One back and forward, in and out of shadow,
That got her nowhere; one more gradual,
Sideways, that would have run her on the stove
In time, had she not realized her danger
And caught herself up bodily, chair and all,
And set herself back where she ,started from.
“She ain't spick too much Henglish— dat's too bad.”
I was afraid, in brightening first on me,
Then on Baptiste, as if she understood
What passed between us, she was only reigning.
Baptiste was anxious for her; but no more
Than for himself, so placed he couldn't hope
To keep his bargain of the morning with me
In time to keep me from suspecting him
Of really never having meant to keep it.

Needlessly soon he had his ax-helves out,
A quiverful to choose from, since he wished me
To have the best he had, or had to spare —
Not for me to ask which, when what he took
Had beauties he had to point me out at length
To ensure their not being wasted on me.
He liked to have it slender as a whipstock,
Free from the least knot, equal to the strain
Of bending like a sword across the knee.
He showed me that the lines of a good helve
Were native to the grain before the knife
Expressed them, and its curves were no false curves
Put on it from without. And there its strength lay
For the hard work. He chafed its long white body
From end to end with his rough hand shut round it.
He tried it at the eye-hold in the ax-head.
“Hahn, hahn,” he mused, “don't need much taking down.”
Baptiste knew how to make a short job long
For love of it, and yet not waste time either.

Do you know, what we talked about was knowledge?
Baptiste on his defense about the children
He kept from school, or did his best to keep —
Whatever school and children and our doubts
Of laid-on education had to do
With the curves of his ax-helves and his having
Used these unscrupulously to bring me
To see for once the inside of his house.
Was I desired in friendship, partly as someone
To leave it to, whether the right to hold
Such doubts of education should depend
Upon the education of those who held them.

But now he brushed the shavings from his knee
And stood the ax there on its horse's hoof,
Erect, but not without its waves, as when
The snake stood up for evil in the Garden—
Top-heavy with a heaviness his short,
Thick hand made light of, steel-blue chin drawn down
And in a little — a French touch in that.
Baptiste drew back and squinted at it, pleased:
“See how she's cock her head!”

弗罗斯特经典长诗 西去的溪水

“佛瑞德，北在哪边？”

“北？那就是北，亲爱的。
溪水是向西流去的。”

“那我们就叫它西去的溪水吧，”
（直到今天人们还这样叫。）
“它干嘛要向西流去？
几乎所有国家的溪水都是向东流去。
这肯定是条背道而驰
且非常自信的溪水，如同
我相信你——你相信我——
因为我们是——我们是——我不知道我们是什么。
我们是什么？”

“人。年轻的或新的？”

“我们肯定是什么。
我说我们两个。让我们改说三个。
就像我和你结婚一样，
我们两个也将和溪水结婚。我们会在溪水上
架座桥并越过它，那桥就是
我们留下的手臂，在溪水边熟睡。
瞧，你瞧，它正用一个浪花冲我们招手呢
想让我们知道它听到了。”

“不会吧，亲爱的，
那浪花是在避开凸出的堤岸——”
（黑色的溪水撞在一块暗礁上，
回流时涌起一片洁白的浪花，
而且随波逐流不断翻涌着，
遮不住黑水也不消失，像一只鸟
胸前的白羽毛，
黑色的溪水和下游更黑的水
搏斗，激起白色的水沫
使得远处岸上的桤木丛好似一条白围巾。）
“我是说，自天底下有这溪水之日起
浪花就在避开凸出的堤岸
它并不是在冲我们招手。”

“你说不是，我说是。如果不是冲你
就是冲我——像在宣告什么。”

“哦，如果你把它带到女人国，
比如带到亚美逊人的国家
我们男人只能目送你到达边界
然后把你留在那儿，我们自己绝不能进去——
你的溪水就这样！我无话可说。”

“不，你有。继续说。你想到了什么。”

“说到背道而驰，你看这溪水
是怎样在白色的浪花中逆流而去。
它来自很久以前，在我们
随便成为什么东西之前的那水。
此时此刻，我们在自己焦躁的脚步声中，
正和它一起回到起点的起点，
回到奔流的万物之河。
有人说存在就像理想化的
普拉特或普拉特蒂，永远在一处
站立且翩翩起舞，但它流逝了，
它严肃而悲苦地流逝，
用空虚填满身不可测的空虚。
它在我们身边的这条溪水中流逝，
也在我们的头顶流逝。它在我们之间流逝
隔开我们在惊慌的一刻。
它在我们之中在我们之上和我们一起流逝。
它是时间、力量、声音、光明、生命和爱——
甚至流逝成非物质的物质；
这帘宇宙中的死亡大瀑布
激流成虚无——难以抗拒，
除非是藉由它自身的奇妙的抗拒来拯救，
不是突然转向一边，而是溯源回流，
仿佛遗憾在它心里且如此神圣。
它具有这种逆流而去的力量
所以这大瀑布落下时总会
举起点什么，托起点什么。
我们生命的跌落托起钟表的指针。
这条溪水的跌落托起我们的生命。
太阳的跌落托起这条溪水。
而且肯定有什么东西使太阳升起。
正由于这种逆流归源的力量，
我们大多数人才能在自己身上看到
那归源长河中涌流的贡品。
其实我们正是来自这个源头。
我们几乎都这样。”

“今天将是……你说这些的日子。”

“不，今天将是
你把溪水叫做西去的溪水的日子。”
“今天将是我们一起说这些的日子。”

译注：
1、 亚美逊人：又译亚马逊（孙）人，希腊神话中尚武善战的女性民族。
2、 普拉特或普拉特蒂：法国哑剧中两个理想化的人物。

West Running Brook

“Fred, where is north?”

“North? North is there, my love.
The brook runs west.”

“West-running Brook then call it.”
(West-Running Brook men call it to this day.)
“What does it think k's doing running west
When all the other country brooks flow east
To reach the ocean? It must be the brook
Can trust itself to go by contraries
The way I can with you -- and you with me --
Because we're -- we're -- I don't know what we are.
What are we?”

“Young or new?”

“We must be something.
We've said we two. Let's change that to we three.
As you and I are married to each other,
We'll both be married to the brook. We'll build
Our bridge across it, and the bridge shall be
Our arm thrown over it asleep beside it.
Look, look, it's waving to us with a wave
To let us know it hears me.”

“Why, my dear,
That wave's been standing off this jut of shore –”
(The black stream, catching a sunken rock,
Flung backward on itself in one white wave,
And the white water rode the black forever,
Not gaining but not losing, like a bird
White feathers from the struggle of whose breast
Flecked the dark stream and flecked the darker pool
Below the point, and were at last driven wrinkled
In a white scarf against the far shore alders.)
“That wave's been standing off this jut of shore
Ever since rivers, I was going to say,'
Were made in heaven. It wasn't waved to us.”

“It wasn't, yet it was. If not to you
It was to me -- in an annunciation.”

“Oh, if you take it off to lady-land,
As't were the country of the Amazons
We men must see you to the confines of
And leave you there, ourselves forbid to enter,-
It is your brook! I have no more to say.”

“Yes, you have, too. Go on. You thought of something.”

“Speaking of contraries, see how the brook
In that white wave runs counter to itself.
It is from that in water we were from
Long, long before we were from any creature.
Here we, in our impatience of the steps,
Get back to the beginning of beginnings,
The stream of everything that runs away.
Some say existence like a Pirouot
And Pirouette, forever in one place,
Stands still and dances, but it runs away,
It seriously, sadly, runs away
To fill the abyss' void with emptiness.
It flows beside us in this water brook,
But it flows over us. It flows between us
To separate us for a panic moment.
It flows between us, over us, and with us.
And it is time, strength, tone, light, life and love-
And even substance lapsing unsubstantial;
The universal cataract of death
That spends to nothingness -- and unresisted,
Save by some strange resistance in itself,
Not just a swerving, but a throwing back,
As if regret were in it and were sacred.
It has this throwing backward on itself
So that the fall of most of it is always
Raising a little, sending up a little.
Our life runs down in sending up the clock.
The brook runs down in sending up our life.
The sun runs down in sending up the brook.
And there is something sending up the sun.
It is this backward motion toward the source,
Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,
The tribute of the current to the source.
It is from this in nature we are from.
It is most us.”

“To-day will be the day....You said so.”

“No, to-day will be the day
You said the brook was called West-running Brook.”
“To-day will be the day of what we both said.”

弗罗斯特经典长诗 雪

三个人站立着，听狂风呼啸
片刻间，风卷着雪凶猛地撞击房子，
然后又鬼哭狼嚎。科尔夫妇
本已上床睡觉，衣服头发尽显凌乱，
莫瑟夫因裹着长毛大衣，看着更矮小。

莫瑟夫首先开腔。他将
手中的烟斗伸过肩头向外边戳了戳说：
“你简直能看清那阵风刮过屋顶
在半空中打开了一卷长长的花名册，
长得足以把我们所有人的名字写上去。——
我想，我现在得给家里打个电话，告诉她
我在这里——现在——等一会儿再出发。
就让铃轻轻响两声，要是她早睡了
但她够机灵，那就不必起来接听。”
他只摇了三下手柄，就拿起听筒。
“喂，丽莎，还没睡？我在科尔家。是晚了。
我只是想在回家对你说早上好
之前，在这儿对你说晚安——
会的——我知道，但是，丽莎——我知道——
会的，可那有什么关系？剩下的路
不会太糟——你再给我一个小时——哦，
三个小时就到这儿了！那全是上坡路；
其它都是下坡——哦，不，不会踢溜爬扑：
它们走得很稳，简直不慌不忙，跟玩儿
似的。它们这会儿都在棚里。——
亲爱的，我会回去的。我打电话
可不是让你请我回家——”
他似乎在等她不情愿地说出那两个字，
最终还是他自己说了：“晚安！”
那边没有应声，于是他挂断了电话。
三个人围着桌子，站在灯光下
低垂着眼睛，直到莫瑟夫又一次开口：
“我想去看看那些马咋样啦。”

“好，你去。”
科尔夫妇异口同声地。科尔太太
又补充道：“看过以后再决定——
佛瑞德，你在这儿陪我。让他留下。
莫瑟夫兄弟，你知道从这儿
去牲口棚的路。”

“我想我知道，
我知道在那里能看到我的大名
刻在牲口棚里，这样，即使我不知道
我身在何处，也知道我是谁。
我过去常这么玩——”

“你照看完它们就回来。——
佛瑞德•科尔，你怎么能让他走呢！”

“为什么不？那你呢？
你是不是要让他留下来？”

“我刚才叫他兄弟。
你知道我为什么那样叫他？”

“这不明摆着嘛。
因为你听周围的人都那样叫他。
他好像已失去了教名。”

“可我感觉那样叫有基督的味道。
他没注意到，是不是？那好，
至少，这并不表明我就喜欢他，
上帝知道。我一想到他有一大帮
不到十岁的孩子，就感觉很讨厌。
我也讨厌他那个芝麻大的邪恶教派，
据我所知，那个教派不怎么的。
但也难说——瞧，佛瑞德•科尔，
都十二点了，他在咱这儿已半小时了。
他说他九点离开镇上杂货店的。
三小时走四英里——一小时一英里
或者稍微多一点儿。这是怎的，
似乎一个男人不会走得这样慢。
想想看，这段时间他一定走得很吃力。
可他还有三英里路要走！”

“不要让他走。
留下他，海伦。让他陪你聊一聊。
那种人心直口快，说起来没完，
只要他自个谈起一件什么事，
别人说什么他都听不进，充耳不闻。
不过我想，你能让他听你说。”

“这样的夜晚他出来干什么？
他怎么就不能呆在家里呢？”

“他得布道。”

“这样的夜晚不该出门。”

“他也许卑微，也许
虔诚，但有一样你要相信：他很坚韧。”

“像一股浓浓的旱烟味儿。”

“他会坚持到底的。”

“说得轻巧。要知道从这儿
到他们家，不会再有别的过夜处。
我想，我该再给他妻子打个电话。”

“别急，他会打的。看他咋办。
咱看他会不会再想到他妻子。
但是我又怀疑，他只会想着他自己。
他不会把这种天气当回事。”

“他不能走——瞧！”

“那是夜，亲爱的。
至少他没把上帝扯进这件事。”

“他或许不认为上帝跟这有关。”

“你真这么想？你不了解这种人。
他这会儿一定想着创造一个奇迹呢。
悄悄的——就他晓得，这会儿，他肯定想
要是成功了，那就证明了一种关系，
失败的话就保持沉默。”

“永远保持沉默。
他会被冻死——被雪埋掉的。”

“言过其实！
不过，要是他真这样做，就会让那些
道貌岸然的家伙又表现出
假惺惺的虔诚。但我还是有一千个理由
不在乎他会出什么事。”

“胡言乱语！你希望他平平安安。”

“你喜欢这个小个子。”

“你不是也有点喜欢么？”

“这个嘛，
我不喜欢他做这种事，而这是
你喜欢的，所以你才喜欢他。”

“哦，肯定喜欢。
你像任何人一样喜欢有趣的事；
只有你们女人才会做出这种姿态
为给男人留下好印象。你让我们男人
感到害臊，即便我们看见
有趣的决斗也觉得有必要去制止。
我说，就让他冻掉耳朵吧——
他回来，我把他全交给你，
救他的命吧。——哦，进来，莫瑟夫。
坐，坐，你那些马怎样啦？”

“很好，很好。”

“还要继续走？我妻子
说你不能走。我看就算了吧。”

“给我个面子行不，莫瑟夫先生？
就当我求你。或者让你妻子决定好了。
她刚才在电话里说什么？”

除了桌上的灯和灯前的什么东西
莫瑟夫似乎再没注视什么。
他放在膝盖上的那只手活像一只
疙里疙瘩的白蜘蛛，他伸直
胳臂，举起食指指着灯下说：
“请看这些书页！在打开的书中！
我感觉它们刚才动了一下。它们一直
那样竖立在桌上，打我进来
它们就始终想向前或向后翻，
而我一直盯着想看出个结果；
要是向前，那它们就是怀着朋友的急躁——
你我心知肚明——要你继续看下去，
看你有什么感受；要是向后
那就是为着你翻过了却未能读到
精彩之处而感到遗憾。不要介意，
在我们理解事物之前，它们肯定会
一次次地向我们展现——我说不清
会重复多少次——那得看情况而定。
有一种谎言总企图证明：任何事物
只在我们面前显现一次。
如果真是那样，那我们最终会在哪里呢？
我们真实的生命依赖万物
的往复循环，直到我们在内心作出回应。
第一千次重现或许能证明其魅力——那书页！
它不能翻到任何一页，除非风帮忙。
但要是它刚才动了，却不是被风吹动。
它自己动的。因为这儿压根没有风。
风不可能让一件东西动得那样微妙。
风不可能吹进灯里让火焰喷出黑烟。
风不可能将牧羊犬的毛发吹得起皱。
你们使这块四平八稳的空间显得
安静、明亮而且温暖，尽管外面是
无边无际的黑暗、寒冷和暴风雨。
正是因为这样做，你们才让身边的
这三样东西——灯、狗和书页保持了自身的平静；
也许，所有人都会说，这平静
就是你们不可能拥有的东西，但你们却能给予。
所以，不拥有就不能给予是无稽之谈，
认为谎言重复千遍就成真理，也是错误。
我要翻一翻这书页，如果没人愿翻的话。
它不会倒下。那么就让它继续竖立。谁在乎呢？”

“我不是在催促你，莫瑟夫，
但要是你想走——哦，干脆留下。
让我拉开窗帘，你会看到
外面的雪有多大，不让你走。
你看见冰天雪地白茫茫一片对吧？
问问海伦，自打我们刚才看过以后
窗框上的雪又爬上去了多高！”

“那看上去像个
煞白煞白的家伙压扁了它的五官
并急急忙忙地合上了双眼，
不愿意瞧人们之间会发生
什么有趣的事，却由于愚蠢和不理解
而酣然入睡了，
或是折断了它白蘑菇般的
短脖子，紧贴着窗玻璃死掉啦。”

“莫瑟夫兄弟，当心，这神叨叨的话
只会吓住你自己，远远超过吓我们。
跟这有关系的是你，因为是你
要独自走出去，走进茫茫雪夜。”

“让他说，海伦，也许他会留下。”

“在你放下窗帘之前——我忽然想起：
你还记得那年冬天跑到这儿来
呼吸新鲜空气的那个小伙吧？——住在
艾弗瑞家的那个？对，暴风雪过后
一个晴朗的早晨，他路过我家
看见我正在屋外雪护墙。
为了取暖，我得把自己严严实实包围起来，
一直把雪堆到了窗台上。
堆到窗顶上的雪吸引了他的目光。
‘嘿！真有你的，’这就是他说的。
‘这样当你暖暖地坐在屋里，研究平衡分配，
就可以想像外面六英尺深的积雪，
在冬天你却感觉不到冬天。’
说完这些他就回家了。但是
在艾弗瑞的窗外，他用雪堵死了白昼。
现在，你们和我都不会做这种事了。
同时也不能否认，我们三个坐在这儿
发挥我们的想像力，让雪线攀升
高过外面的玻璃窗，这并不会使
天气变得更糟糕，一点也不。
在茫茫冰天雪地中，有一种隧道——
更像隧道而不像洞——你可以看见
隧道深处有一种搅动或震颤
如同破败的巷道边沿在风中
颤抖。那情形，我喜欢——真的。
好啦，现在我要离开你们上路了，朋友。”

“哦，莫瑟夫，
我们还以为你决定不走了呢——
你刚才还用那种方式说你在这儿
感觉自在呢。你其实想留下来。”

“必须承认，下这场雪够冷的。
而你们呆的这房间，这整幢房子
很快就会给冻裂。要是你们以为风声
远了，那不是因为它会消失；
雪下得越深——道理尽在其中——
你越感觉不到它。听那松软的雪炸弹
它们正在烟囱口上对着我们爆裂呢，
屋檐上也是。比起外面，我更喜欢
呆在房间里。但我的牲口都休息好了
而且也到说晚安的时候了，
你们上床歇息去吧。晚安，
抱歉我这不速之客，惊了你们的好梦。”

“你能来是你的运气。真的，
把我们家当作你中途的休息站。
如果你是那种尊重女人意见的人，
你就应该采纳我的建议
而且为你家人着想，留下不走。
但是，我这样苦口婆心又有什么用？
你所做的已经超过了你最大的
极限——如你刚才所说。你知道
继续走，这要冒多大的风险。”

“一般来说，我们
这里的暴风雪不会置人于死地。
虽说我宁可做一头藏在雪底下
冬眠的野兽，洞口被封死，甚至掩埋，
也不愿做一个在上面和雪搏斗的人。
你想想那栖息在枝头而不是安睡
在巢里的鸟吧。难道我还不如它们？
就在今晚，它们被雪打湿的身体
很快就会冻结成冰块。但是翌日清晨
它们又会回到醒来的树枝上跳跃，
扑闪着翅膀，叽叽喳喳欢唱，
仿佛不知道暴雨雪有什么意义。”

“可为什么呢，既然谁都不想让你再走？
你妻子——她不希望。我们也不，
你自己也不希望。其他还会有谁？”

“让我们不要被女人的问题难住。
哦，此外还有”—— 后来她告诉佛瑞德
在他停顿那会儿，她以为他会说
出“上帝”这个令人感到敬畏的字眼。
但他只是说“哦，此外还有——暴风雪。
它说我得继续走。它需要我如同
战斗需要我一样——如果真有战斗。
去问问随便哪个男人吧。”

他撂下最后一句话，让她
去傻不楞瞪，直到他走出门。
他让科尔陪他到牲口棚，送送他。
当科尔回来，发现妻子依然
站在桌边，靠近打开的书页，
但并不是在读它。

“好啦，”她说：
“你觉得他是个什么样的人？”

“应该说，他有
语言天赋，或者，能说会道？”

“这样的人从来就爱东拉西扯吗？”

“也许是漠视人们所问的世俗问题——
不，我们在一小时内对他的了解
比我们看他从这路上经过一千次
了解的还要多。他要这样布道才好呢！
毕竟，你不并没真想留住他。
哦，我不是在怪你。他总是
让你插不上嘴，但我很高兴，
我们不必陪他过一夜。他就是留下
也不会睡觉。芝麻大的事也会使他兴奋。
可他一走，咱这里静得像座空荡荡的教堂。”

“这比他没走又能好多少呢？
我们得一直坐这儿等，直到他安全到家。”

“是么，我猜你会等，但我不会。
他知道他的能耐，不然他不会走的。
我说，咱们上床吧，好歹休息一会儿。
他不会折回来的，既就是他来电话，
那也是在一两个小时以后。”

“那好。我想
我们坐在这儿陪他穿越暴风雪
也是白费油蜡。”

－ － － － － － － － － － －

科尔一直在暗处打电话。
科尔太太的声音从里屋传来：
“她打过来的还是你打的？”

“她打的。
你要是不想睡就起来好了。
我们早该睡了：都三点多了。”

“她说了一会儿了？我去
把睡衣拿来。我想和她说说。”

“她只说，
他还没到家，问他是不是真走了。”

“她知道他走了，至少两个小时了。”

“他带着雪铲。他得铲雪开路。”

“天，为什么我刚才要让他离开呢！”

“别这样。你已尽力
留过他了——不过，你也许没
下老实挽留，你倒是希望他有勇气
违反你。他妻子会怪你的。”

“佛瑞德，我毕竟说过！不管怎样
你不能离了我的话而胡乱理解。
难道她刚才说的意思就是
要怪我？”

“我对她说‘走了，’
她说，‘好啊，’接着又‘好啊’——像在威胁。
然后声音低低地说：‘哦，你，
你们为什么要让他走呢？’”

“问我们为什么让他走？
你闪开！我倒要问问她为什么放他出来。
他在这儿的时候她咋不敢说呢。
他们的号码是——二○一？打不通。
有人把话筒撂下了。这摇柄太紧。
这破玩意儿，会扯断人的手臂！
通了！可她已撂下话筒走了。”

“试着说说。说‘喂！’”

“喂。喂。”

“听到什么了？”

“听到一个空房间——
真的——是空房间。真的，我听见——
有钟表声——窗户咔嗒响。
听不见脚步声。即便她在，也是坐着的。”

“大声点儿，她或许会听见。”

“大声也不顶用。”

“那就继续。”

“喂。喂。喂。
你想——她会不会是出门去了？”

“我担心，她可能真出去了。”

“丢下那些孩子？”

“等一会儿再喊吧。
你就听不出那门是不是敞开着
是不是风吹灭了灯，炉火也熄灭
房间里又黑又冷？”

“只有一种可能：她上床了，
要么就是出门了。”

“哪一种情况都不妙。
你知道她是怎样的人？你认识她？
真奇怪，她不想和我们说话。”

“佛瑞德，你来，看你能不能听见
我听见的那种声音。”

“感觉是钟表响。”

“就没听到别的？”

“不是说话声。”

“不是。”

“啊，我听见了——是什么呢？”

“什么？”

“一个婴儿的哭声！
听起来真凶，虽然感觉异常遥远。
当妈的不会让他那样哭的，
除非她不在。”

“这说明什么？”

“只有一种可能，
那就是——她出门去了。
不过，我想她没出去。”他们
就地坐下。“天亮以前我们毫无办法。”

“佛瑞德，我不允许你想到出去。”

“别出声。”电话突然响了。
他们站了起来。佛瑞德抓过话筒。
“喂，莫瑟夫。这么说你到了！——你妻子呢？
很好！我问这干吗——刚才她好像不接电话。
——他说刚才她去牲口棚接他了——
我们很高兴。哦，别客气，朋友。
欢迎你下次路过时再来看我们。”

“好了，
这下她终于得到他了，尽管我看不出
她为什么需要他。”

“她可能不是为她自己。
她需要他，也许只是为了那些孩子。”

“看来这完全是虚惊一场。
我们折腾这一夜难道只为让他觉得好笑？
他来干什么？——只是来聊聊？
不过他倒是打来电话告诉我们正在下雪。
要是他想把我们家变成往返城镇
中途休息的一个咖啡厅——”

“我想你刚才太过担心了。”

“难道刚才你就不担心？”

“如果你是说他不太为别人着想
半夜把我们从床上拉了起来，
然后又对我们的建议置之不理，
那我同意。但是，让我们原谅他。
我们已分享了他生命中的一个夜晚。

你敢不敢打赌，他还会再来的？”

Snow

THE THREE stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free again—the Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.

Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward
Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,
“You can just see it glancing off the roof
Making a great scroll upward toward the sky,
Long enough for recording all our names on.—
I think I’ll just call up my wife and tell her
I’m here—so far—and starting on again.
I’ll call her softly so that if she’s wise
And gone to sleep, she needn’t wake to answer.”
Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.
“Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I’m at Cole’s. I’m late.
I called you up to say Good-night from here
Before I went to say Good-morning there.—
I thought I would.— I know, but, Lett—I know—
I could, but what’s the sense? The rest won’t be
So bad.— Give me an hour for it.— Ho, ho,
Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;
The rest is down.— Why no, no, not a wallow:
They kept their heads and took their time to it
Like darlings, both of them. They’re in the barn.—
My dear, I’m coming just the same. I didn’t
Call you to ask you to invite me home.—”
He lingered for some word she wouldn’t say,
Said it at last himself, “Good-night,” and then,
Getting no answer, closed the telephone.
The three stood in the lamplight round the table
With lowered eyes a moment till he said,
“I’ll just see how the horses are.”

“Yes, do,”
Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole
Added: “You can judge better after seeing.—
I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,
Brother Meserve. You know to find your way
Out through the shed.”

“I guess I know my way,
I guess I know where I can find my name
Carved in the shed to tell me who I am
If it don’t tell me where I am. I used
To play—”

“You tend your horses and come back.
Fred Cole, you’re going to let him!”

“Well, aren’t you?
How can you help yourself?”

“I called him Brother.
Why did I call him that?”

“It’s right enough.
That’s all you ever heard him called round here.
He seems to have lost off his Christian name.”

“Christian enough I should call that myself.
He took no notice, did he? Well, at least
I didn’t use it out of love of him,
The dear knows. I detest the thought of him
With his ten children under ten years old.
I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,
All’s ever I heard of it, which isn’t much.
But that’s not saying—Look, Fred Cole, it’s twelve,
Isn’t it, now? He’s been here half an hour.
He says he left the village store at nine.
Three hours to do four miles—a mile an hour
Or not much better. Why, it doesn’t seem
As if a man could move that slow and move.
Try to think what he did with all that time.
And three miles more to go!”
“Don’t let him go.
Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.
That sort of man talks straight on all his life
From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf
To anything anyone else may say.
I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you.”

“What is he doing out a night like this?
Why can’t he stay at home?”

“He had to preach.”

“It’s no night to be out.”

“He may be small,
He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.”

“And strong of stale tobacco.”

“He’ll pull through.’
“You only say so. Not another house
Or shelter to put into from this place
To theirs. I’m going to call his wife again.”

“Wait and he may. Let’s see what he will do.
Let’s see if he will think of her again.
But then I doubt he’s thinking of himself
He doesn’t look on it as anything.”

“He shan’t go—there!”

“It is a night, my dear.”

“One thing: he didn’t drag God into it.”

“He don’t consider it a case for God.”

“You think so, do you? You don’t know the kind.
He’s getting up a miracle this minute.

Privately—to himself, right now, he’s thinking
He’ll make a case of it if he succeeds,
But keep still if he fails.”

“Keep still all over.
He’ll be dead—dead and buried.”

“Such a trouble!
Not but I’ve every reason not to care
What happens to him if it only takes
Some of the sanctimonious conceit
Out of one of those pious scalawags.”

“Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.”

“You like the runt.”

“Don’t you a little?”

“Well,
I don’t like what he’s doing, which is what
You like, and like him for.”

“Oh, yes you do.
You like your fun as well as anyone;
Only you women have to put these airs on
To impress men. You’ve got us so ashamed
Of being men we can’t look at a good fight
Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it.
Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.—
He’s here. I leave him all to you. Go in
And save his life.— All right, come in, Meserve.
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?”

“Fine, fine.”

“And ready for some more? My wife here
Says it won’t do. You’ve got to give it up.”

“Won’t you to please me? Please! If I say please?
Mr. Meserve, I’ll leave it to your wife.
What did your wife say on the telephone?”

Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp
Or something not far from it on the table.
By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,
He pointed with his hand from where it lay
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:
“That leaf there in your open book! It moved
Just then, I thought. It’s stood erect like that,
There on the table, ever since I came,
Trying to turn itself backward or forward,
I’ve had my eye on it to make out which;
If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience—
You see I know—to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take, if backward
It’s from regret for something you have passed
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,
Things must expect to come in front of us
A many times—I don’t say just how many—
That varies with the things—before we see them.
One of the lies would make it out that nothing
Ever presents itself before us twice.
Where would we be at last if that were so?
Our very life depends on everything’s
Recurring till we answer from within.
The thousandth time may prove the charm.— That leaf!
It can’t turn either way. It needs the wind’s help.
But the wind didn’t move it if it moved.
It moved itself. The wind’s at naught in here.
It couldn’t stir so sensitively poised
A thing as that. It couldn’t reach the lamp
To get a puff of black smoke from the flame,
Or blow a rumple in the collie’s coat.
You make a little foursquare block of air,
Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all
The illimitable dark and cold and storm,
And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,
And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose;
Though for all anyone can tell, repose
May be the thing you haven’t, yet you give it.
So false it is that what we haven’t we can’t give;
So false, that what we always say is true.
I’ll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.
It won’t lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?”

“I shouldn’t want to hurry you, Meserve,
But if you’re going— Say you’ll stay, you know?
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,
And show you how it’s piling up against you.
You see the snow-white through the white of frost?
Ask Helen how far up the sash it’s climbed
Since last we read the gage.”

“It looks as if
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat
And its eyes shut with overeagerness
To see what people found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the window-pane.”

“Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It’s you it matters to, because it’s you
Who have to go out into it alone.”

“Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.”

“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter—had a room
Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny morning
After a downy storm, he passed our place
And found me banking up the house with snow.
And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,
Piling it well above the window-sills.
The snow against the window caught his eye.
‘Hey, that’s a pretty thought’—those were his words.
‘So you can think it’s six feet deep outside,
While you sit warm and read up balanced rations.
You can’t get too much winter in the winter.’
Those were his words. And he went home and all
But banked the daylight out of Avery’s windows.
Now you and I would go to no such length.
At the same time you can’t deny it makes
It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,
Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run
So high across the pane outside. There where
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost
More like a tunnel than a hole—way down
At the far end of it you see a stir
And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift
Blown in the wind. I like that—I like that.
Well, now I leave you, people.”

“Come, Meserve,
We thought you were deciding not to go—
The ways you found to say the praise of comfort
And being where you are. You want to stay.”

“I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow.
This house is frozen brittle, all except
This room you sit in. If you think the wind
Sounds further off, it’s not because it’s dying;
You’re further under in the snow—that’s all—
And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust
It bursts against us at the chimney mouth,
And at the eaves. I like it from inside
More than I shall out in it. But the horses
Are rested and it’s time to say good-night,
And let you get to bed again. Good-night,
Sorry I had to break in on your sleep.”

“Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you
You had us for a half-way station
To stop at. If you were the kind of man
Paid heed to women, you’d take my advice
And for your family’s sake stay where you are.
But what good is my saying it over and over?
You’ve done more than you had a right to think
You could do—now. You know the risk you take
In going on.”

“Our snow-storms as a rule
Aren’t looked on as man-killers, and although
I’d rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep
Under it all, his door sealed up and lost,
Than the man fighting it to keep above it,
Yet think of the small birds at roost and not
In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?
Their bulk in water would be frozen rock
In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow
They will come budding boughs from tree to tree
Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee,
As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm.”

“But why when no one wants you to go on?
Your wife—she doesn’t want you to. We don’t,
And you yourself don’t want to. Who else is there?”

“Save us from being cornered by a woman.
Well, there’s”—She told Fred afterward that in
The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word
Was coming, “God.” But no, he only said
“Well, there’s—the storm. That says I must go on.
That wants me as a war might if it came.
Ask any man.”

He threw her that as something
To last her till he got outside the door.
He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.
When Cole returned he found his wife still standing
Beside the table near the open book,
Not reading it.

“Well, what kind of a man
Do you call that?” she said.

“He had the gift
Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?”

“Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?”

“Or disregarding people’s civil questions—
What? We’ve found out in one hour more about him
Than we had seeing him pass by in the road
A thousand times. If that’s the way he preaches!
You didn’t think you’d keep him after all.
Oh, I’m not blaming you. He didn’t leave you
Much say in the matter, and I’m just as glad
We’re not in for a night of him. No sleep
If he had stayed. The least thing set him going.
It’s quiet as an empty church without him.”

“But how much better off are we as it is?
We’ll have to sit here till we know he’s safe.”

“Yes, I suppose you’ll want to, but I shouldn’t.
He knows what he can do, or he wouldn’t try.
Get into bed I say, and get some rest.
He won’t come back, and if he telephones,
It won’t be for an hour or two.”

“Well then.
We can’t be any help by sitting here
And living his fight through with him, I suppose.”

－ － － － － － － － － －

Cole had been telephoning in the dark.
Mrs. Cole’s voice came from an inner room:
“Did she call you or you call her?”

“She me.
You’d better dress: you won’t go back to bed.
We must have been asleep: it’s three and after.”

“Had she been ringing long? I’ll get my wrapper.
I want to speak to her.”

“All she said was,
He hadn’t come and had he really started.”

“She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.”

“He had the shovel. He’ll have made a fight.”

“Why did I ever let him leave this house!”

“Don’t begin that. You did the best you could
To keep him—though perhaps you didn’t quite
Conceal a wish to see him show the spunk
To disobey you. Much his wife’ll thank you.”

“Fred, after all I said! You shan’t make out
That it was any way but what it was.
Did she let on by any word she said
She didn’t thank me?”

“When I told her ‘Gone,’
‘Well then,’ she said, and ‘Well then’—like a threat.
And then her voice came scraping slow: ‘Oh, you,
Why did you let him go’?”

“Asked why we let him?
You let me there. I’ll ask her why she let him.
She didn’t dare to speak when he was here.
Their number’s—twenty-one? The thing won’t work.
Someone’s receiver’s down. The handle stumbles.
The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!
It’s theirs. She’s dropped it from her hand and gone.”

“Try speaking. Say ‘Hello’!”

“Hello. Hello.”

“What do you hear?”

“I hear an empty room—
You know—it sounds that way. And yes, I hear—
I think I hear a clock—and windows rattling.
No step though. If she’s there she’s sitting down.”

“Shout, she may hear you.”

“Shouting is no good.”

“Keep speaking then.”

“Hello. Hello. Hello.
You don’t suppose—? She wouldn’t go out doors?”

“I’m half afraid that’s just what she might do.”

“And leave the children?”

“Wait and call again.
You can’t hear whether she has left the door
Wide open and the wind’s blown out the lamp
And the fire’s died and the room’s dark and cold?”

“One of two things, either she’s gone to bed
Or gone out doors.”

“In which case both are lost.
Do you know what she’s like? Have you ever met her?
It’s strange she doesn’t want to speak to us.”

“Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.”

“A clock maybe.”

“Don’t you hear something else?”

“Not talking.”
“No.”

“Why, yes, I hear—what is it?”

“What do you say it is?”

“A baby’s crying!
Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.”

“Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that,
Not if she’s there.”

“What do you make of it?”

“There’s only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming—that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn’t though.” They both sat down
Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.”

“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”

“Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
“Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!—And your wife?
Good! Why I asked—she didn’t seem to answer.
He says she went to let him in the barn.—
We’re glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.
Drop in and see us when you’re passing.”

“Well,
She has him then, though what she wants him for
I don’t see.”

“Possibly not for herself.
Maybe she only wants him for the children.”

“The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing.
What spoiled our night was to him just his fun.
What did he come in for?—To talk and visit?
Thought he’d just call to tell us it was snowing.
If he thinks he is going to make our house
A halfway coffee house ’twixt town and nowhere——”

“I thought you’d feel you’d been too much concerned.”

“You think you haven’t been concerned yourself.”

“If you mean he was inconsiderate
To rout us out to think for him at midnight
And then take our advice no more than nothing,
Why, I agree with you. But let’s forgive him.
We’ve had a share in one night of his life.

What’ll you bet he ever calls again?”

弗罗斯特经典长诗 星星分割器

“你知道猎户座总从天边升起。
先是一条腿迈过我们栅栏似的群山，
接着举起手臂，像是看我
借着灯火，在外面干我本该
在白天干完的农活。的确，
大地冻结之后，我只能干它结冻
之前我应该做的，阵风将几片
枯萎的落叶丢进我冒烟的
提灯，嘲笑我干活的熊样儿，
或者嘲笑猎户座让我走火入魔。
我倒要问问，一个人，难道
不该关心这冥冥中的影响力？”
布莱德•麦克劳林轻率地将
星星和他杂乱的农事混为一谈，
直到他不再做那无章的农活，
他一把火烧光了房子，骗取了火灾保险金
用得来的钱买了台天文望远镜
以满足他终身的好奇心——
关于我们在无限宇宙中所处的位置。

“你要那该死的东西干什么？”
我先前问他，“你不是有一个嘛！”
“别说它该死；只要不是
人类战争使用的武器，任何东西
都无可指责，”他当时说，
“如果我卖掉农场我就买一个。”
他那块地在耕作时总需要搬石头
而且里面有许多大石头搬不走，
所以农场很难转手；他折腾了很久
想卖农场卖不掉，只好
为得笔火灾保险干脆将房子全烧光
然后如前所说，如愿以偿。
有几个人早就听他这么说过：
“人世间最有趣的事就是目不转睛，
而让我们看得最远的就是
天文望远镜。我看每个镇
都该有热心人为他那里弄一台。
而在利特尔顿，非我莫属。”
如此大大咧咧信口开河，他烧毁房子
骗得保险金也就不足为奇。

但那天冷笑声在镇上四处弥漫
好让他知道我们不是孤陋寡闻，
等着吧——明天大家就会嘲笑他。
但第二天早上，我们首先
想的是一个人总会犯点儿错误，
如果我们搬着指头一个一个地数，
那么很快全都成了“独鬼子”。
要你来我往，就必须宽宏大量。
譬如那个经常偷东西的小偷，
我们没说不让他来教堂参加圣餐仪式，
只是丢的东西他得还回来，
只要没吃掉，没弄坏，没转手。
所以不能因为一台天文望远镜
就对布莱德说三道四。毕竟他一把年纪
不可能得到这样一份圣诞礼物，
他只能用自以为是的办法
给自己弄一个。好，我们只说
他还以为这事能把我们蒙在鼓里呢。
居然有人为那房子唉声叹气，
那是一幢年代久远的原木房子，
但房子没有感觉，房子不会
知道任何事。即便它有，那
为什么不把它看成是某种祭品呢，
一种过时的火中的祭品，
而不是新式的亏本拍卖的商品？

一根火柴哧啦一声划掉了房子
也划掉了整个农场，布莱德不得不
改行到康科德铁路公司谋生，
在一个车站上做车票代理，
当他不卖票的时候，他就
满怀热情地忙活，当然这不像
在农场上那样，而是观望各种星星
红色绿色五颜六色。

他花600美元买了台很棒的望远镜。
新工作使他有闲暇观望星星。
他经常邀请我去一道观望
透过衬着黑天鹅绒的黄铜色圆镜筒，
看另一端瑟瑟发抖的星星。
我记得那是一个云彩细碎的夜晚
脚下的积雪早已融化成冰，
更在寒风中冻结成泥泞。
布莱德和我一起搬出那台望远镜：
叉开它的三脚支架，叉开我们的双腿。
我们的心思对准它对准的方位，
在闲暇中站立等待黎明到来，
聊起了一些从来没有聊过的好事情。

那台望远镜美其名曰“星星分割器”，
因为它只能将星星一分为二
或一分为三，就像你用一根手指
逢中一击，将掌心的一滴水银分割成
两三滴，其他再没别的功能。
如果真有星星分割器那这就是一个代表
如果分割星星和用斧头劈柴
一样有趣，那它还算是用点用。

我们看啊看，眼睛睁得像鸡蛋，可我们
看见了什么？我们究竟在哪里？
而在今晚，这个东西又是怎样架在夜空
和有着一个冒烟的提灯的人之间？
那叉开腿的架势难不成会有更大的变化？

Star-Splitter, The

“You know Orien always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are obliged to pay respect to?”
So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a life-long curiosity
About our place among the infinities.

“What do you want with one of those blame things?”
I asked him well beforehand. “Don't you get one!”
“Don't call it blamed; there isn't anything
More blameless in the sense of being less
A weapon in our human fight," he said.
"I'll have one if I sell my farm to buy it.”
There where he moved the rocks to plow the ground
And plowed between the rocks he couldn't move,
Few farms changed hands; so rather than spend years
Trying to sell his farm and then not selling,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And bought the telescope with what it came to.
He had been heard to say by several:
“The best thing that we're put here for's to see;
The strongest thing that's given us to see with's
A telescope. Someone in every town
Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one.
In Littleton it may as well be me.”
After such loose talk it was no surprise
When he did what he did and burned his house down.
Mean laughter went about the town that day
To let him know we weren't the least imposed on,
And he could wait--we'd see to him to-morrow.
But the first thing next morning we reflected
If one by one we counted people out
For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long
To get so we had no one left to live with.
For to be social is to be forgiving.
Our thief, the one who does our stealing from us,
We don't cut off from coming to church suppers,
But what we miss we go to him and ask for.
He promptly gives it back, that is if still
Uneaten, unworn out, or undisposed of.
It wouldn't do to be too hard on Brad
About his telescope. Beyond the age
Of being given one's gift for Christmas,
He had to take the best way he knew how
To find himself in one. Well, all we said was
He took a strange thing to be roguish over.
Some sympathy was wasted on the house,
A good old-timer dating back along;
But a house isn't sentient; the house
Didn't feel anything. And if it did,
Why not regard it as a sacrifice,
And an old-fashioned sacrifice by fire,
Instead of a new-fashioned one at auction?

Out of a house and so out of a farm
At one stroke (of a match), Brad had to turn
To earn a living on the Concord railroad,
As under-ticket-agent at a station
Where his job, when he wasn't selling tickets,
Was setting out up track and down, not plants
As on a farm, but planets, evening stars
That varied in their hue from red to green.

He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.
His new job gave him leisure for star-gazing.
Often he bid me come and have a look
Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
At a star quaking in the other end.
I recollect a night of broken clouds
And underfoot snow melted down to ice,
And melting further in the wind to mud.
Bradford and I had out the telescope.
We spread our two legs as it spread its three,
Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,
And standing at our leisure till the day broke,
Said some of the best things we ever said.
That telescope was christened the Star-splitter,
Because it didn't do a thing but split
A star in two or three the way you split
A globule of quicksilver in your hand
With one stroke of your finger in the middle.
It's a star-splitter if there ever was one
And ought to do some good if splitting stars
'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood.

We've looked and looked, but after all where are we?
Do we know any better where we are,
And how it stands between the night to-night
And a man with a smoky lantern chimney?
How different from the way it ever stood?

弗罗斯特文学年表 （1874－1963）

1874年
3月26日生于加利福尼亚的圣弗朗西斯科（旧金山）。母亲是苏格兰一商船船长的女儿，父亲是新英格兰一古老农家的独子。

1875年
父亲成为《旧金山每日晚邮报》本地新闻编辑主任。弗罗斯特认为自己出生在这一年。

1876年
春天随母亲去东部。父亲赌博酗酒。妹妹珍妮•弗罗斯特出生。

1877-1878年
接受母亲的宗教启蒙，听她读《圣经》中的故事，开始上斯维登堡新教会教堂的主日学校。

1879年
上了一天幼儿园，因严重的神经性胃痛未再上。

1880年
上公立小学一年级，很快因胃病复发而退学。课程由做教师的母亲在家补上。常随母亲逛旧金山，了解该城的地理和历史。

1881年
就读小学二年级，在母亲做礼拜的斯维登堡新教会教堂接受洗礼。

1882年
因胃病复发再次退学，继续在家接受教育。

1883年
喜欢听母亲讲圣女贞德以及《圣经》、神话、童话中的人物故事。母亲还为他朗读莎士比亚、爱伦•坡等人的作品。有时独自一人时听见有说话声，如母亲所说，他和她一样天生就有“超凡的听觉”和“预见力”。

1884年
短期当报童。为父亲竞选市收税官跑腿。父亲竞选失败，再难工作。母亲出版童话《水晶国》。

1885年
父亲病逝，全家陷入经济困窘。夏天住在叔祖母家的农场上，喜欢帮他们摘浆果。

1886年
全家搬至新罕布什尔州塞勒姆迪波，并在母亲所教的学校上学。学会削木器，打棒球，和查理•皮博迪成为好朋友，查理教他爬白桦树、掏鸟窝，设置陷阱捕捉动物。

1889年
在贝利的农场上干活，学会磨镰刀和割草。

1890年
随母亲迁回劳伦斯市。处女作《伤心之夜》发表在《劳伦斯中学校刊》上。

1891年
通过哈佛大学入学预考，预考科目有希腊语、拉丁语、希腊史、罗马史、代数、几何以及英国文学。

1892年
与同校同学埃莉诺•米里娅姆•怀特订婚。独自精读英语抒情诗。

1893年
在梅休因学校接手母亲难以管教的八年级班。辞去教职帮助埃莉诺的母亲和他体弱多病的妹妹。空闲时间研读莎士比亚。遭年初被他鞭笞过的数名学生痛打。

1894年
开始在塞姆勒小学教一至六年级。让印刷商印了两小册《暮光》，内收他的6首诗。一册赠给埃莉诺，埃莉诺反应冷淡，故将自己的那一册烧毁。

1895年
为劳伦斯市的《美国人日报》和《哨兵报》当记者。年底与埃莉诺•怀特结婚。

1896年
继续写诗，但感觉写得不够好。受神经失调与胃病折磨。在中学朋友卡伯尔的影响下恢复了对植物学的兴趣，频频到乡下采集标本，津津有味地阅读威廉•斯塔尔•达纳夫人写《如何辨认野花》。儿子埃利奥特出生。

1897年
通过哈佛大学入学考试，进入哈佛大学就读。

1898年
因学业成绩优秀获休厄尔奖学金。

1899年
因身体原因离开哈佛。女儿莱斯得出生。在祖父的资助下开始办家禽饲养场。

1900年
乐于照料小鸡。儿子埃利奥特死于霍乱。母亲死于癌症。

1902年
儿子卡罗尔出生。

1903年
在《东部家禽饲养者》杂志上发表短篇小说《自闭式产蛋箱》。3月携全家到纽约市度假，数次拜访报刊编辑，但编辑对他的诗没兴趣。女儿伊尔玛出生。

1904年
始终没有正式的书桌。晚上继续在餐桌上写诗。

1905年
女儿玛乔丽出生。

1906年
在德里的平克顿中学当兼职教师，教授英语语言文学。在德里的《企业报》上发表《花丛》一诗。

1907-1908年
女儿埃莉诺•贝蒂纳出生，3日后夭折。

1909年
把家从农场搬至附近德里村的一套公寓。《进入自我》一诗发表在《新英格兰杂志》上。指导学生办文学杂志《平克顿评论家》。

1911年
接受州立师范学校的邀请到该校任校。

1912年
决定侨居英国数年，过穷日子，好好写诗。辞去教职，携家人从波士顿乘船去英国。

1913年
通过弗林特结识庞德，通过庞德认识叶芝。《少年的心愿》出版。叶芝对庞德说这是“很久以来写得最好的美国诗。”开始在一系列信件中记录下关于“无规则的重音和格律中有规律的节奏相交错的意义之音”的想法，并声称自己要成为一个雅俗共赏的诗人。

1914年
《波士顿以北》在英国出版，好评如潮。

1915年
携家人从利物浦乘船离开英国，返回美国。得知《波士顿以北》在美国出版。《少年的心愿》也在美出版，同样好评如潮。在新罕布什州买了一家农场。在塔夫茨学院朗诵《白桦树》、《未选择的路》和《树声》。在架在椅子扶手间的自制板上写诗。

1916年
在哈佛大学朗诵《火堆》和《斧柄》。《山间》出版，到纽约签名售书。

1917年
独幕剧《出路》发表。长诗《雪》赢得《诗刊》100美元奖金。

1918年
接受麻萨诸塞州阿默斯特学院授予的荣誉文科硕士学位，被任命为英语教授。

1919-1920年
参加《出路》首演式。将妹妹珍妮送往神经病院。继续演讲和诗朗诵，现在每次至少收100美元外加费用。

1921年
同儿子卡罗尔一起种植苹果园和松树林。喜欢驾轻便马车。

1922年
获密歇根大学荣誉文科硕士学位。被佛蒙特州妇女俱乐部联盟命名为佛蒙特桂冠诗人。

1923年
《诗选集》出版。儿子卡罗尔结婚。配有插图的《新罕布什尔》出版。

1924年
《新罕布什尔》获普利策奖。孙子普雷斯科特出生。接受米德尔伯里学院和耶鲁大学授予的荣誉文学博士学位。并接受密歇根大学的终身聘任。

1925年
3月26日在纽约市出席朋友们为他举办的五十岁生日宴会。弗罗斯特认为自己出生在1875年，比实际时间晚一年。

1926-1927年
女儿伊尔玛婚配。外孙即伊尔玛的儿子杰克出世。

1928年
携妻子与女儿玛乔丽去法国。随后去英国，探望叶芝，不久和艾略特相遇。返美，配有插图的《西去的溪流》出版。

1929年
妹妹珍妮去世。

1930年
《诗合集》出版。当选为美国文学艺术学会会员。

1931年
《诗合集》获普利策奖。并接受全美文学艺术学会授予的拉塞尔•洛伊尼斯诗歌奖。

1932年
搬进阿默斯特新居。在洛杉矶观看奥运会。出席为艾略特举办的酒会，对艾略特看轻彭斯和其他苏格兰诗人感到不满。

1933年
继续频繁演讲捞外快，因为孩子们的费用都得他支付。

1934年
女儿玛乔丽去世。

1935年
会见斯蒂文斯。

1936年
自费出版玛乔丽的一本小诗集《弗朗科尼亚》。《山外有山》出版。

1937年
《山外有山》获普利策奖。当选为美国哲学学会会员。

1938年
妻子埃莉诺死于肾衰竭。弗罗斯特身心崩溃，未能参加火葬仪式。被选入哈佛大学管理委员会。向凯瑟琳•莫里森求婚遭到拒绝。喜于莫里森答应做他的秘书为他工作。

1939年
指定他在20年代就认识的劳伦斯•汤普森为正式传记作者，但条件是传记须在他死后出版。

1940年
儿子卡罗尔用猎枪自杀。

1941年
去南迈阿密过冬天，买地，种植橘树林，果林中有芒果、枇杷、香蕉等。

1942年
在南迈阿密建两座小屋，命名为笔松居。《见证树》出版。

1943年
自得其乐栽培植物。《见证树》获普利策奖。弗罗斯特成为第一个四获普利策奖的人。

1945年
《理智的假面剧》出版。夏天写《仁慈的假面剧》。

1947年
《绒毛绣线菊》出版。年底出版《仁慈的假面剧》。

1949年
《弗罗斯特诗全集》出版，受到好评并且畅销。

1950年
美国参议院通过决议在弗罗斯特75岁生日那天向他致敬，其实是76岁生日。

1951年
继续外出演讲并读诗。因视力衰退经常背诵诗歌。切除右脸上方的癌性肿瘤。

1953年
被授予美国诗人协会研究员职位。因面部皮肤癌继续接受手术。

1954年
《旧作新编》出版，限量印行650册。参加一系列80岁生日庆祝活动，他现在发现自己是出生于1874年。赴巴西参加世界作家代表大会。

1957年
和艾略特、海明威在麦克利什起草的信上签名，要求司法部长撤消对庞德的叛国罪指控。在伦敦英语民族协会出席为他举办的宴会，艾略特在祝酒时称弗罗斯特是在世的“最卓越、最杰出”的英美诗人，将他和但丁、莎士比亚、歌德相提并论。

1958年
应艾森豪威尔总统邀请到白宫做客。被任命为国会图书馆诗歌顾问。接受美国艺术和科学研究院授予的“爱默生—梭罗奖章”。

1960年
当选总统约翰•肯尼迪邀请他参加就职典礼。

1961年
为1月20日举行的总统就职典礼创作新诗。但那天耀眼的阳光使他无法朗读，只背诵了旧作《彻底奉献》。在国务院支持下访问以色列和希腊。

1962年
出席“罗伯特•李•弗罗斯特小学”落成典礼。出访苏联。会见安娜•阿赫玛托娃、叶夫图什科等。因病不能离房，赫鲁晓夫登门看望。接受前列腺手术，发现恶性肿瘤，肺栓塞。

1963年
获波林根诗歌奖。再次出现肺栓塞。1月29日午夜过后不久去世。骨灰安葬在旧本宁顿弗罗斯特家族墓区。