【糖果盒子】新生Newborn

ALL I could see from where I stood 

Was three long mountains and a wood; 

I turned and looked the other way, 

And saw three islands in a bay. 

So with my eyes I traced the line         

Of the horizon, thin and fine, 

Straight around till I was come 

Back to where I’d started from; 

And all I saw from where I stood 

Was three long mountains and a wood.         

Over these things I could not see: 

These were the things that bounded me; 

And I could touch them with my hand, 

Almost, I thought, from where I stand. 

And all at once things seemed so small         

My breath came short, and scarce at all. 

But, sure, the sky is big, I said; 

Miles and miles above my head; 

So here upon my back I’ll lie 

And look my fill into the sky.         

And so I looked, and, after all, 

The sky was not so very tall. 

The sky, I said, must somewhere stop, 

And—sure enough!—I see the top! 

The sky, I thought, is not so grand;         

I ’most could touch it with my hand! 

And reaching up my hand to try, 

I screamed to feel it touch the sky. 

I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity 

Came down and settled over me;         

Forced back my scream into my chest, 

Bent back my arm upon my breast, 

And, pressing of the Undefined 

The definition on my mind, 

Held up before my eyes a glass         

Through which my shrinking sight did pass 

Until it seemed I must behold 

Immensity made manifold; 

Whispered to me a word whose sound 

Deafened the air for worlds around,         

And brought unmuffled to my ears 

The gossiping of friendly spheres, 

The creaking of the tented sky, 

The ticking of Eternity. 

I saw and heard and knew at last       

The How and Why of all things, past, 

And present, and forevermore. 

The Universe, cleft to the core, 

Lay open to my probing sense 

That, sick’ning, I would fain pluck thence                                             

But could not,—nay! But needs must suck 

At the great wound, and could not pluck 

My lips away till I had drawn 

All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn! 

For my omniscience paid I toll         

In infinite remorse of soul. 

All sin was of my sinning, all 

Atoning mine, and mine the gall 

Of all regret. Mine was the weight 

Of every brooded wrong, the hate         

That stood behind each envious thrust, 

Mine every greed, mine every lust. 

And all the while for every grief, 

Each suffering, I craved relief 

With individual desire,—         

Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire 

About a thousand people crawl; 

Perished with each,—then mourned for all! 

A man was starving in Capri; 

He moved his eyes and looked at me;         

I felt his gaze, I heard his moan, 

And knew his hunger as my own. 

I saw at sea a great fog bank 

Between two ships that struck and sank; 

A thousand screams the heavens smote;         

And every scream tore through my throat. 

No hurt I did not feel, no death 

That was not mine; mine each last breath 

That, crying, met an answering cry 

From the compassion that was I.         

All suffering mine, and mine its rod; 

Mine, pity like the pity of God. 

Ah, awful weight! Infinity 

Pressed down upon the finite Me! 

My anguished spirit, like a bird,         

Beating against my lips I heard; 

Yet lay the weight so close about 

There was no room for it without. 

And so beneath the weight lay I 

And suffered death, but could not die.         

Long had I lain thus, craving death, 

When quietly the earth beneath 

Gave way, and inch by inch, so great 

At last had grown the crushing weight, 

Into the earth I sank till I         

Full six feet under ground did lie, 

And sank no more,—there is no weight 

Can follow here, however great. 

From off my breast I felt it roll, 

And as it went my tortured soul                                                               

Burst forth and fled in such a gust 

That all about me swirled the dust. 

Deep in the earth I rested now; 

Cool is its hand upon the brow 

And soft its breast beneath the head         

Of one who is so gladly dead. 

And all at once, and over all 

The pitying rain began to fall; 

I lay and heard each pattering hoof 

Upon my lowly, thatchèd roof,         

And seemed to love the sound far more 

Than ever I had done before. 

For rain it hath a friendly sound 

To one who’s six feet under ground; 

And scarce the friendly voice or face:         

A grave is such a quiet place. 

The rain, I said, is kind to come 

And speak to me in my new home. 

I would I were alive again 

To kiss the fingers of the rain,         

To drink into my eyes the shine 

Of every slanting silver line, 

To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze 

From drenched and dripping apple-trees. 

For soon the shower will be done,         

And then the broad face of the sun 

Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth 

Until the world with answering mirth 

Shakes joyously, and each round drop 

Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.         

How can I bear it; buried here, 

While overhead the sky grows clear 

And blue again after the storm? 

O, multi-colored, multiform, 

Beloved beauty over me,         

That I shall never, never see 

Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold, 

That I shall never more behold! 

Sleeping your myriad magics through, 

Close-sepulchred away from you!         

O God, I cried, give me new birth, 

And put me back upon the earth! 

Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd 

And let the heavy rain, down-poured 

In one big torrent, set me free,         

Washing my grave away from me! 

I ceased; and through the breathless hush 

That answered me, the far-off rush 

Of herald wings came whispering 

Like music down the vibrant string                                                         

Of my ascending prayer, and—crash! 

Before the wild wind’s whistling lash 

The startled storm-clouds reared on high 

And plunged in terror down the sky, 

And the big rain in one black wave         

Fell from the sky and struck my grave. 

I know not how such things can be; 

I only know there came to me 

A fragrance such as never clings 

To aught save happy living things;         

A sound as of some joyous elf 

Singing sweet songs to please himself, 

And, through and over everything, 

A sense of glad awakening. 

The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,         

Whispering to me I could hear; 

I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips 

Brushed tenderly across my lips, 

Laid gently on my sealèd sight, 

And all at once the heavy night         

Fell from my eyes and I could see,— 

A drenched and dripping apple-tree, 

A last long line of silver rain, 

A sky grown clear and blue again. 

And as I looked a quickening gust         

Of wind blew up to me and thrust 

Into my face a miracle 

Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,— 

I know not how such things can be!— 

I breathed my soul back into me.         

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I 

And hailed the earth with such a cry 

As is not heard save from a man 

Who has been dead, and lives again. 

About the trees my arms I wound;       

Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; 

I raised my quivering arms on high; 

I laughed and laughed into the sky, 

Till at my throat a strangling sob 

Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb         

Sent instant tears into my eyes; 

O God, I cried, no dark disguise 

Can e’er hereafter hide from me 

Thy radiant identity! 

Thou canst not move across the grass                                                 

But my quick eyes will see Thee pass, 

Nor speak, however silently, 

But my hushed voice will answer Thee. 

I know the path that tells Thy way 

Through the cool eve of every day;         

God, I can push the grass apart 

And lay my finger on Thy heart! 

The world stands out on either side 

No wider than the heart is wide; 

Above the world is stretched the sky,—         

No higher than the soul is high. 

The heart can push the sea and land 

Farther away on either hand; 

The soul can split the sky in two, 

And let the face of God shine through.         

But East and West will pinch the heart 

That can not keep them pushed apart; 

And he whose soul is flat—the sky 

Will cave in on him by and by...

by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY