及冠之人 勞勃·佩恩·華倫（試譯：淺白）
何底新霜，或箔絲，單純而徹冽，
在清旦勾劃了那一新入目的山頭？
光輝在夜中作成：
一個死去的世界，闇昧凝寒；忽乃覷見
如此光華，自思緒裏閃綻開來。
故就這樣安頓了——一張垂死的面容
在嘔吐與抽搐過後，宛然自在。
（而這種自在，並未見於過去——
在那焦煩、悖謬，且無有愛的房間裏：
看守人沉重地坐着，而夜正漫長。）
而如今佇立在其自家的門坎前，
他凝看那冠飾着山頂的林子，
並問道：「是這樣嗎，當日在那無帶聲息
的林木下，一再游蕩以自證本心的；那個我
可不是更見青蔥和有愛嗎？」
而他確曾是這樣嗎？現在，和着抽筋的
膝踝，且讓他跨踏過陡斜的坡路，
一面想着哪些是他素知的徑途；
一面在積雪的樹幹下尋覓：那一點
稀弱、且不無嗔責的另我。
山林的行者，在無一葉的林裏；
岥前的攀巖人，請領受您的悲傷
然後便去罷！免得他，在你行踏
那片昔曾如此輕煦的、被人駐居的地表前，
輒如霧一樣，消遁在那玻璃般的大暗裏。
21/4/2024初稿
Man Coming of Age
By Robert Penn Warren (from his 1935 collection Thirty-Six Poems)
What rime, what tinsel pure and chill,
At dawn defines the new-spied hill?
This brilliance in the night was wrought:
Of dark and cold a dead world caught
Such light that glitters out of thought.
So settles on a dying face,
After the retch and spasm, grace.
(A grace like that did not belong
In the room of no-love, fret, and wrong:
The watchers sat heavy, night was long.)
Now standing on his own doorsill,
He views the woods that crest the hill,
And asks: "Was it I who roamed to prove
My heart beneath the unwhispering grove
In season greener and of more love?"
And was it he? Now let him stride
With cramped knee the slant hillside,
Pondering what ways he used to know,
Seeking under the snowy bough
That frail reproachful alter ego.
Walker in woods that bear no leaf,
Climber of rocks, assume your grief
And go! lest he, before you tread
That ground once sweetly tenanted,
Like mist, down the glassy gloom be fled.
圖片源自網絡。
