[转帖] 几首英文小诗

emmer

If Recollecting Were Forgetting
            ——Emily Dickinson

If recollecting were forgetting,
Then I remember not.
And if forgetting, recollecting,
How near I had forgot.
And if to miss, were merry,
And to mourn, were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
That gather this, Today!

emmer

A Minor Bird  
                 ——Robert Frost

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

emmer

silence  
                          ——ee cummings

  silence

.is
a
looking

bird:the

turn
ing;edge,of
life

(inquiry before snow

emmer

Love is more thicker than forget
                                 ——e.e. cummings

Love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

It's most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

Love is more always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less litter than forgive

It's most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

kemingqian

(美）艾米莉 荻更生 Emily Dickinson / 江枫 译

如果记住就是忘却，                   If recollecting were forgetting ,
那我不愿记住什么。                   Then I remember not.
如果忘却就是记住，                   And if forgetting , recollecting,
那么，我与忘却已没有距离。        How near I had forgot.

如果思念是一种愉悦，                And if to miss, were merry,
如果哀悼是一种欢乐，                And to  mourn ,were gay,
那么，手指该是多么愉快，           How very blite the fingers
因爲今天它们已经把这些收集！     That gathered this, Today!

emmer

You are tired
                  ——e.e. cummings

You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me, then,
And we'll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

emmer

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.  
  
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?  
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.  
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.  
  
I do not think that they will sing to me.
  
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves  
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back  
When the wind blows the water white and black.  
  
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

——T. S. Eliot

kemingqian

板凳那首比较难懂。

李酒苗

5# kemingqian
等待翻译，请继续~~~

kemingqian

A Minor Bird  

Robert Frost

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

翻译：铁冰

厌鸟

厌彼栖枝久，
屋前唱不停。
拍手欲惊去，
辗转莫堪听。
躁自尘心起
何故怨鸟鸣？
曲音竟成恙，
只恨不清平。

翻译：不详

小小鸟

彼雀在枝，终日长嘶。
愿君远飏，静我屋室。
不堪其扰，我心难适。
倚门拍手，惊去勿迟。
惶惶我心，清宁有失。
啾啾其声，何怨何斥。
停尔诸音，停我烦思。
误既在人，心自迟滞。

翻译：不详


我曾希望一只鸟儿飞离身旁，
不要在我的房前整日歌唱。

我曾经在门前对它拍手，
当我再也无法忍受。

这过错必然在我，
不在鸟儿和它的歌喉。

在想要将歌声平息的愿望里，
必然有着某种失误。

李酒苗

10# kemingqian
谢谢克明~~~
原来是欧版的《打起黄莺儿》~~

kemingqian

Silence Is a Looking Bird

In my view, the most challenging part of a poet’s work is to name the unnameable and articulate the unspoken or unspeakable. Silence is such a poetic realm worthy of further exploration and even transgression of the boundaries of imagination. In his succinct and intense poem below,

silence
.is
a
looking

bird:the

turn
ing;edge, of
life

(inquiry before snow


E. E. Cummings tackles this challenging subject by defining it through two vivid images: “the looking bird” and “the turning edge of life.” The first image signifies the potentiality of the unactualized voice and its underlying metaphor that has been displaced is that of the singing bird. The second one refers to the unimaginable passage where speech turns into speechlessness. These two images are beyond conventional representation. Is a looking bird still a bird? And can the turning edge of life be called a life? He works hard on the limits of literary representation and tries to pin down the elusive nature of his escaping subject.

Still, silence, Cummings humbly admits, partly resists definition because of its self-sufficiency as the punctuation mark, a period, at the beginning of the second line clearly demonstrates. Written in his innovative sentence structure, silence in itself is a sentence that hardly needs any verb. To further explore the unheard and express the unspoken, he resorts to the eye and points out the analogy between silence and snow, two words that begin and end with the poem. The last line, “(inquiry before snow,” is left out a closing parenthesis and followed by a huge blank, loudly announcing a white downpour, a visual snow that covers the rest of the page. This literary device is similar to a Chinese painting method, "leaving blank” (liu bai in Chinese), with which artists may leave the background blank to enhance the impact in order to emphasize a particular subject. Silence is made visible on the page by the surrounding blank space. If silence is the unspoken by definition, through the reader’s imagination, silence can be experienced visually on the page. To some extent, this poem is not only textual but also visual, and Cummings skilfully enables the reader to decipher the mute hieroglyphs of the page and to turn them into speech. Silence is a looking bird, which can realize its potentiality of singing beautiful songs through imagination.
_________________
This dark
Ceiling without a star

找不到翻译。转一段【北美枫】上Clair的评论。

shaya

俺班门弄斧，试着翻译一下
If Recollecting Were Forgetting        如果记忆淡去
            ——Emily Dickinson                   埃米利  --狄金森

If recollecting were forgetting,       如果记忆淡去，
Then I remember not.                    到全部忘却，
And if forgetting, recollecting,        如果记忆由模糊到清晰
How near I had forgot.                  多近的事情我都能忘记
And if to miss, were merry,            如果因思念而愉悦
And to mourn, were gay,               如果忧伤而阴沉
How very blithe the fingers            那么今天亲人们聚在一起
That gather this, Today!                是多么的快乐！

李酒苗

楼上shaya甭客气~~~