一只螳螂的诗

今日，网络海淘时，发现一位上个世纪幽默作家Don Marquis（1878-1937）。

他最著名的作品，是模拟一只叫做archy的蟑螂写的诗。

早晨，我们提前进了屋子，发现一只巨大的蟑螂在打字机上跳跃。它没有看到我们，而我们则看着它。它费劲地在打字机的键盘上爬上爬下，用尽力气将全身压在一个字母键上，然后向下一冲，它的重量和冲力刚好使这个机器工作，慢慢地一个字母接一个字母打了上去。它没法使用大写键，它极其费劲地操作机器，移动纸张，达到换行的目的。我们以前从未见过这么努力，或者说这么自由自在的蟑螂。在大约进行了1个小时这种困难得可怕的文学劳动以后，他筋疲力尽地跌落在地板上，我们看着它虚弱地爬进一个小巢，里面有大量的诗歌，

We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning, and discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about on the keys. He did not see us, and we watched him. He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just sufficient to operate the machine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a great deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a nest of the poems which are always there in profusion.

值得庆幸的是，前一天晚上我们在打字机上留了一张纸，这只蟑螂的所有努力没有白费。我们检查了一下，下面就是我们看到的：

Congratulating ourself that we had left a sheet of paper in the machine the night before so that all this work had not been in vain, we made an examination, and this is what we found:

说话是我灵魂的需要我曾经是一个自由体诗人，但是我死后，我的灵魂附在一只蟑螂的体内这使得我看到了不同的生活现在我从地底下的视角看待一切

expression is the need of my soul

i was once a vers libre bard

but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach

it has given me a new outlook upon life

i see things from the under side now

...

(rest of poem snipped)