:—from off their delicate stems

Perennial tears descend in gems.

(1831)

不安的山谷

它曾微笑，一个幽静的山谷，

那儿荒凉冷落，无人居住；

人们都早已去参加战争，

并嘱托目光柔和的星星，

夜夜从它们碧蓝的城堡

把幽谷中的花儿照料，

而在白天，红红的阳光

则懒洋洋地在花间卧躺。

现在每个游客都会承认

那凄凉的山谷并不太平。

山谷中的一切都不平静——

一切，除了凝滞的空气

笼罩着不可思议的阒寂。

啊，没有风吹动那些树梢，

跳动如冰冷的万顷波涛

环绕在朦胧的赫布里底群岛！

啊，没有风驱动那些云朵，

如它们飒飒从天上掠过，

骚动不安，从黎明到日落，

如它们在紫罗兰上轻拂，

那些紫罗兰引得万人瞩目——

如它们在百合花上轻吹，

百合花在无名荒冢摇曳落泪！

摇曳——从它们芳香的花冠

滴下永恒的露珠一串一串。

落泪——从它们优雅的植株

一滴一滴就像宝石珍珠。

（1831）

The City in the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town;

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently—

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—

Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—

Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—

Up many and many a marvellous shrine

Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves

Yawn level with the luminous waves;

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol's diamond eye—

Not the gaily-jewelled dead

Tempt the waters from their bed;

For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass—

No swellings tell that winds may be

Upon some far-off happier sea—

No heavings hint that winds have been

On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave—there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrust aside,

In slightly sinking, the dull tide—

As if their tops had feebly given

A