奥登：悼念叶芝（穆旦译，附原作英文诗）

一、

.

他在严寒的冬天消失了：

小溪已冻结，飞机场几无人迹

积雪模糊了露天的塑像；

水银柱跌进垂死一天的口腔。

呵，所有的仪表都同意

他死的那天是寒冷而又阴暗。

.

远远离开他的疾病

狼群奔跑过常青的树林，

农家的河没受到时髦码头的诱导；

哀悼的文辞

把诗人的死同他的诗隔开。

.

但对他说，那不仅是他自己结束，

那也是他最后一个下午，

呵，走动着护士和传言的下午；

他的躯体的各省都叛变了，

他的头脑的广场逃散一空，

寂静侵入到近郊，

他的感觉之流中断：他成了他的爱读者。

.

如今他被播散到一百个城市，

完全移交给陌生的友情；

他要在另一种林中寻求快乐，

并且在迥异的良心法典下受惩处。

一个死者的文字

要在活人的腑肺间被润色。

.

但在来日的重大和喧嚣中，

当交易所的掮客像野兽一般咆哮，

当穷人承受着他们相当习惯的苦痛，

当每人在自我的囚室里几乎自信是自由的

有个千把人会想到这一天，

仿佛在这天曾做了稍稍不寻常的事情。

.

呵，所有的仪表都同意，

他死的那天是寒冷而又阴暗。

.

二、

.

你像我们一样蠢；可是你的才赋

却超越这一切：贵妇的教堂，肉体的

衰颓，你自己；爱尔兰刺伤你发为诗歌，

但爱尔兰的疯狂和气候依旧，

因为诗无济于事：它永生于

它辞句的谷中，而官吏绝不到

那里去干预；“孤立”和热闹的“悲伤”

本是我们信赖并死守的粗野的城，

它就从这片牧场流向南方；它存在着，

是现象的一种方式，是一个出口。

.

三、

.

泥土呵，请接纳一个贵宾，

威廉•叶芝己永远安寝：

让这爱尔兰的器皿歇下，

既然它的诗已尽倾洒。

.

时间对勇敢和天真的人

可以表示不能容忍，

也可以在一个星期里，

漠然对待一个美的躯体，

.

却崇拜语言，把每个

使语言常活的人都宽赦，

还宽赦懦弱和自负．

把荣耀都向他们献出。

.

时间以这样奇怪的诡辩

原谅了吉卜林和他的观点，

还将原谅保尔•克劳德，

原谅他写得比较出色。

.

黑暗的恶梦把一切笼罩，

欧洲所有的恶犬在吠叫，

尚存的国家在等待，

各为自己的恨所隔开；

.

智能所受的耻辱

从每个人的脸上透露，

而怜悯的海洋已歇，

在每只眼里锁住和冻结。

.

跟去吧，诗人，跟在后面，

直到黑夜之深渊，

用你无拘束的声音

仍旧劝我们要欢欣；

.

靠耕耘一片诗田

把诅咒变为葡萄园，

在苦难的欢腾中

歌唱着人的不成功；

.

从心灵的一片沙漠

让治疗的泉水喷射，

在他的岁月的监狱里

教给自由人如何赞誉。

.

附原文：

In Memory Of W.B. Yeats

.

I

.

He disappeared in the dead of winter:

The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,

And snow disfigured the public statues;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

.

Far from his illness

The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,

The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;

By mourning tongues

The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,

An afternoon of nurses and rumours;

The provinces of his body revolted,

The squares of his mind were empty,

Silence invaded the suburbs,

The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities

And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,

To find his happiness in another kind of wood

And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.

The words of a dead man

Are modified in the guts of the living.

.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow

When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,

And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,

And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,

A few thousand will think of this day

As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

.

II

.

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:

The parish of rich women, physical decay,

Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to tamper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.

.

III

.

Earth, receive an honoured guest:

William Yeats is laid to rest.

Let the Irish vessel lie

Emptied of its poetry.

.

In the nightmare of the dark

All the dogs of Europe bark,

And the living nations wait,

Each sequestered in its hate;

.

Intellectual disgrace

Stares from every human face,

And the seas of pity lie

Locked and frozen in each eye.

.

Follow, poet, follow right

To the bottom of the night,

With your unconstraining voice

Still persuade us to rejoice;

.

With the farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,

Sing of human unsuccess

In a rapture of distress;

.

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.

（完）