·晓拂·

我家弟弟刚刚又写了一本诗集。这是其中的一首：


Butterfly

I fly through the tree tops
Gliding as lightly as falling autumn leaves
I cross stitch a pattern to the immense cloth known as the sky
My four wings flap simultaneously
A grid of beauty
I am a flock of colors
All joined together to make one flying machine
I am a butterfly


我的译文：


蝴蝶

我滑过树梢
象秋叶一样轻俏

天空是一块无垠的布
我的飞翔使她更娇

我的双翅美如格子
我是一组色彩
飞得高高


这首诗的图画思维很强。可惜我没有译出来。尤其是“My four wings flap simultaneously”，“A grid of beauty”两句，前一句写动，后一句写动中的一种美的定格。但翻译时很难将其表现出来。他的诗中常常若隐若现的有淡淡的忧伤。象这里的秋叶要表达的。我也没有将它翻译出来。

外语诗欣赏：济慈、狄更斯、叶慈

‧杜若‧

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket
John Keats

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper's -- he takes the lead
In summer luxury -- he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

－－－－－－－－－－－

The cricket sang
-- Emily Dickinson

The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
　　Their seam the day upon.

The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
　　To stay as if, or go.

A vastness, as a neighbor, came,--
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,--
　　And so the night became.

－－－－－－－－－－－

Locust Spring
by J.M. Yates

One by one
The heave doors
of my senses
Swing open into the spring

Things I spent the winter naming
Struggle free of
Their round syllables
Sing down the full throats
Of the fattening birds

In the dark
When the air relaxes
The rages of singing and wings
Small circles descend
Toward the grass:
Each encapsulates seventeen years.

‧杜若‧