The Last Chrysanthemum
The Last Chrysanthemum
by Thomas Hardy
Why should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.
Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?
It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.
Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season's shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.
Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?
- I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;
Yet it is but one mask of many worn
By the Great Face behind.
最后一朵菊花
吳迪 譯
這朵菊花為何留得如此長久，
來顯示自己震顫的羽絨？
現在已是知更鳥哀鳴的時刻，
當花兒已經葬入了墳冢。
在漫長的夏季，束束陽光
被邀探訪片片葉兒和花瓣，
太陽為花朵做完了該做的事情，
這朵花那時為何沒有開放？
它一定感到那熾熱的召喚，
盡管絲毫也沒有留心，
但現在已蘇醒，當樹葉僵尸般掉落，
當樹液紛紛地隱身。
它的美色來得太晚，孤獨的東西，
季節的光輝已經耗完，
什么也沒有為它留下，它只好
在狂暴的風雪中震顫。
難道它有原因逗留，
沒有頭腦地異想天開，
對于一朵嬌嫩美麗的鮮花，
酷冬定會抑制自己的殘害？
——瞧我說的，仿佛花朵
生來就有思維的能力；
然而這只是許多面具中的一個，
被戴于背后的上帝。
托馬斯?哈代簡介
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