hem with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

(1849)

梦中之梦①

请你的眉间接受这一吻！

在这我与你分手的时分，

到此为止让我向你承认——

你并没有错，当你认定

我这一生一直是一场梦；

但若是希望已付诸东流

在一个夜晚，或在白昼，

在幻想之中，或在虚渺，

它难道因此失去得更少？

我们所见或似见的一切

都不过是一场梦中之梦。

我站在咆哮轰鸣的海边，

我站在波涛汹涌的海岸，

我紧紧地握在我的手里

一粒粒金光灿灿的沙粒——

真少！可它们仍然溜走，

从我指间溜向大海深处，

而我常哭问——我常哭求！

上帝啊！我难道不能够

把这些沙粒儿抓得更紧？

上帝哟！我难道不可以

从无情波涛留黄沙一粒？

我们所见或似见的一切

难道只是一场梦中之梦？

（1849）

注释

①　活跃于20世纪70—80年代的英国艾伦帕森实验乐团（The Alan Parsons Project）曾改编演唱过这首诗。——译者注

For Annie

Thank Heaven! the crisis—

The danger is past,

And the lingering illness

Is over at last—

And the fever called "Living"

Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I know

I am shorn of my strength,

And no muscle I move

As I lie at full length—

But no matter!—I feel

I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,

Now, in my bed,

That any beholder

Might fancy me dead—

Might start at beholding me,

Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,

The sighing and sobbing,

Are quieted now,

With that horrible throbbing

At heart:—ah, that horrible,

Horrible throbbing!

The sickness—the nausea—

The pitiless pain—

Have ceased, with the fever

That maddened my brain—

With the fever called "Living"

That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures

That torture the worst

Has abated—the terrible

Torture of thirst

For the napthaline river

Of Passion accurst:—

I have drank of a water

That quenches all thirst:—

Of a water that flows,

With a lullaby sound,

From a spring but a very few

Feet under ground—

From a cavern not very far

Down under ground.

And ah! let it never

Be foolishly said

That my room it is gloomy

And narrow my bed;

For man never slept

In a different bed—

And, to sleep, you must slumber

In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit

Here blandly reposes,

Forgetting, or never

Regretting its roses—

Its old agitations

Of myrtles and roses:

For now, while so quietly

Lying, it fancies

A holier odor

About it, of pansies—

A rosemary odor,

Commingled with pansies—

With rue and the beautiful

Puritan