配图 / Barbara Peirson

悼念集（30）

用颤抖的手指我们在编织
环绕圣诞炉火的冬青；
大地上乌云横行，
我们的平安夜忧伤地降临。

如往年一样，我们在客厅小聚，
嬉戏打闹，强颜欢笑，
但每个人都心怀敬畏地觉察到
有个幽影无声地注视着一切。

我们停下来：风在山毛榉上：
我们听见它们正扫荡冬天的土地；
而在一个手拉手的圆圈里
我们沉默端坐，相互凝望。

于是我们的声音彼此回荡；
我们唱歌，尽管眼神黯淡，
去年此时，我们曾和他相伴
唱愉快的歌：我们纵情歌唱：

歌声停顿：一种温柔的感觉蔓延
在我们中间：休息是多么合适：
“他们休息，”我们说，“他们的睡眠香甜”
沉默袭来，我们哭泣。

我们的歌声抵达更高的音域；
再一次我们唱道：“他们没有死
没有丧失与人世间的感应，
对我们来说毫无变化，尽管他们已改变；

“聚集起力量，从变幻和脆弱中
摆脱，再用这样的力量，
这六翼天使般强烈而纯洁的光，
刺穿一圈圈天体，一层层面纱。”

上升，快乐的晨曦，上升，神圣的晨曦，
从夜晚唤起欢乐的白昼：
哦天父，请轻触东方，擦亮
那希望萌生时微微闪动的光。

作者 / [英国]丁尼生
翻译 / 张定浩

In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 30 

With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess’d the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall
We gambol’d, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused: the winds were in the beech:
We heard them sweep the winter land;
And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.

Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, tho’ every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
Upon us: surely rest is meet:
“They rest,” we said, “their sleep is sweet,”
And silence follow’d, and we wept.

Our voices took a higher range;
Once more we sang: “They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change;

“Rapt from the fickle and the frail
With gather’d power, yet the same,
Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil.”

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.

Alfred Tennyson