配图 / 徐累 

一曲抒情诗

如果时间和空间，如哲人们所讲，
是实际上不能存在的东西，
从不感到衰败的太阳，
不比我们有多了不起。
那么爱人啊，我们为什么要祈想
活上整整一个世纪?
仅仅活了一天的蝴蝶，一样
也把永恒经历。

当露水还在藤上颤抖时，
我给你的那朵鲜花
已经枯萎了，而野蜂还未飞去
把那野玫瑰吮吸一下。
那么让我们快去采撷新的花朵，
看到花朵憔悴，也不会泪下，
虽然我们爱情的日子屈指可数
但让它们放出神圣的光华。

作者 / [英国] T. S. 艾略特
翻译 / 裘小龙

A Lyric

If Time and Space, as sages say,
Are things which cannot be,
The sun which does not feel decay
No greater is than we.

So why, Love, should we ever pray
to live a century?
The butterfly that lives a day
Has lived eternity.

The flowers I gave thee when the dew
Was trembling on the vine,
Were withered ere the wild bee flew
To suck the eglantine.

So let us haste to pluck anew
Nor mourn to see them pine,
And though our days of love be few
Yet let them be divine.

T.S.Eliot