| seclusive |
2008-04-13 17:34 |
The Hound of Heaven 天猎
Francis Thompson 汤朴生
于中旻 译
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days,
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat – and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet –
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities
（For, though I knew His love Who followed,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside）;
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon;
With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover!
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they slept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They changed their chariot 'thwart a heaven
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn of their feet –
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat –
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
I sought no more that after which I strayed
In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children's eyes
Seems something, something that replies;
They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's – share
With me," said I, "your delicate fellowship;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured dais,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."
So it was done;
I in their delicate fellowship was one –
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
On the willful face of skies;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumed of the wild sea-snortings;
All that's born or dies
Rose and drooped with—made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine—
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's gray cheek.
For ah! we know not what each other says,
These things and I; in sound I speak —
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts o' her tenderness;
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noised Feet—
A voice comes yet more fleet—
"Lo naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."
Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou has hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenseless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years—
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah, is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must—
Designer infinite!—
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sightful branches of my mind.
Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With blooming robes, purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields
Be dunged with rotten death?
Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing,
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught," He said,
"And human love needs human meriting,
How hast thou merited—
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to live ignoble thee
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home;
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"
Halts by me that footfall;
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
我逃避祂，历经白昼，到夜间；
我逃避祂，历经年复一年；
我逃避祂，历经我自己思念中
错综的迷径；在凄迷的眼泪里
我躲藏祂，在连续的嘻笑后面。
我急速的攀登希望的远景，
又吶喊，流汗，
在下边巨大可怕的深渊，
那强壮的脚步，在身后跟着，跟在后边。
但不是匆忙的追赶，
脚步并不慌乱，
从容的速度，紧促而不失庄严，
脚步节奏中 -- 声音响起
比那脚步更近迩 --
“你这背离我的，万有都背离你。”
我抗辩，逾越法制的边限，
有许多可爱的窗槛，垂着红的窗帘，
其间有恩爱的纠缠
（我虽知道祂的爱跟随着，
却是深深的惧怕
惟恐有了祂，就必须舍弃所有的其它爱恋）；
但是，如果那小窗扉只开启一扇，
祂的狂风将冲进里面。
惧怕不知如何逃，爱却要追赶。
我奔逃，超越世界的边缘，
闯进了群星的金衢街道间，
扰乱了他们的栅栏寻求遮掩；
穿越那些芳香的瓶罐
摇动月亮的银门发声铿然。
我对清晨说：快来；告诉夜：不要迟延；
用你的新花掩埋我
躲避那极端的爱的眼！
撒出你朦胧的纱环绕我，叫祂看不见！
我试遍祂所有的仆役，终于发现
我虽然背逆他们却贞坚，
他们对主忠实对我却多变，
他们的违逆是真实，赤诚是欺骗。
我向所有速变的东西请求速援；
攀悬在每阵呼啸的风长鬣上面。
但不论他们如何猛驰，疾驶，
那碧蓝的长空平原；
或是乘驾雷电，
他们紧附着祂的车横越上天
绕蹄溅着飞行的电闪 --
惧怕不知如何逃，爱却要追赶。
仍然不匆忙的追赶，
脚步并不慌乱，
从容的速度，紧促而不失庄严，
那脚步跟在后边，
语音比步声更加清晰 —
“没有甚么不接纳我，而能接纳你。”
我不再寻求从前的迷途
那脸孔是男或是女；
但仍然在小孩童的眼中
似乎有些甚么，甚么可以给我答复；
至少他们会支持我，一定支持我！
我转向他们满怀着希望；
可是，正当他们忽然示爱凝眸
将要把答案倾吐，
天使抓住了头发拉他们离去。
“来吧，你们大自然另外的儿女 --”
我说：“与我同享你们美好的欢娱；
让我亲吻欢迎你，
让我与你拥抱轻抚，
嬉戏
弄我们母亲飘扬的长发，
欢宴
在她风为墙壁的宫府，
她湛蓝的顶盖遮覆，
照
一流信息监控拦截系统
泻沤巧炱穑�
暂时震动迷雾闪开空隙 一片，然后
在半瞥之后楼阙重被遮掩。
但到祂传召之后
我才得看见，展现
绚丽的紫袍，柏叶的冠冕；
我知道祂的名，号角已经宣示。
是否人的心或生命能出产
你的庄稼，你那产地
必须用粪肥和腐朽的死？
在那长久的追逐之后
巨响已近在身边；
那声音包围我像是突来的海涛一般：
“是否你的土地已全失尽
像破而又碎的瓦片？
看哪，因你逃避我，所有的都逃避你！
奇怪，可怜，无益的东西，
何必让其它的把你的爱隔离？
只有我从无有造出万有。”祂说。
“人性的爱需要有人间的成就
你有甚么可值得夸口 --
所有泥块的人中最肮脏的泥块？
唉，你不知道
你何等不值得任何的爱！
你能找到谁肯救卑贱的你
除了我，除非唯一的我？
所有我从你拿去的我剥夺
并非是要害你，
是要你能单从我手中寻得。
你一切童騃的误意
幻想是损失，我都已经为你收存在家里；
起来，握紧我的手，来！”
那脚步在我旁停住；
或许是我的阴郁，
祂的手荫伸出慰抚？
“啊，最愚昧，最软弱，最盲目的，
我是那一位你寻求追逐！
你驱动我的爱，爱驱使我。”
1890-92 1893
***
诗人简介
英国诗人汤朴生 （Francis Thompson, 1859-1907），父亲执业医生。父亲希望他读神学，但他选择习医学。不过，他习医失败，贫病交迫，为止病痛，又染上了鸦片的嗜好，沦落伦敦街头，卖火柴和报纸为生，一度寄居在修鞋店里帮闲。但他总执意不肯放弃所喜爱的文学和鸦片。后来，有一个编辑Wilfred Meynell发现他的才华，在其杂志上发表了他的诗， 并送他入医院疗养恢复健康，又助他刊行诗集。
他的诗出版后，勃朗宁（Robert Browning）读过之后大为赞赏；特别是“天猎”诗，他的朋友Coventry Patmore 称之为英国文学中的最佳作品。
汤朴生的诗，很像十七世纪英国宗教诗人的作品。在“天猎”诗中，有丰富的意喻，还像奥古斯丁（St. Augustine）， 叙述自己的忏悔，特别是神的恒久忍耐和不可抗拒的恩典。人在神以外追寻满足，结果不过是虚空和失望；也描述人的逃避与神恩的追逐，仿佛是诗篇第一百三十九篇的演述。 |
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