森林坐在我们面前，我们看见他。他在我们面前抽烟斗，我们听见了。他是不是个子小，头发红，他是不是带着沉思的凝视点着烟斗，两眼映出尖尖的火焰?他是悲伤还是快乐，是愚蠢还是聪明?难道没有人看见他进了城门，向上面的屋顶、树木和天空观看吗?“我从云里走出来，”他说，“当夜幕降临的时候;我踏着铃声走着;我疾驰而去;还是我笑着从尘土中跳出来?…… Has no one, in a great autumnal forest, When the wind bares the trees, Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown? Has no one, on a mountain in the spring, Heard Senlin sing? Perhaps I came alone on a snow-white horse,-- Riding alone from the deep-starred night. Perhaps I came on a ship whose sails were music,-- Sailing from moon or sun on a river of light.' He lights his pipe with a pointed flame. 'Yet, there were many autumns before I came, And many springs. And more will come, long after There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter. The city dissolves about us, and its walls Become an ancient forest. There is no sound Except where an old twig tires and falls; Or a lizard among the dead leaves crawls; Or a flutter is heard in darkness along the ground. Has Senlin become a forest? Do we walk in Senlin? Is Senlin the wood we walk in, --ourselves,--the world? Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . No answer, Only soft broken echoes backward whirled . . . Yet we would say: this is no wood at all, But a small white room with a lamp upon the wall; And Senlin, before us, pale, with reddish hair, Lights his pipe with a meditative stare. 2 Senlin, walking beside us, swings his arms And turns his head to look at walls and trees. The wind comes whistling from shrill stars of winter, The lights are jewels, black roots freeze. 'Did I, then, stretch from the bitter earth like these, Reaching upward with slow and rigid pain To seek, in another air, myself again?' (Immense and solitary in a desert of rocks Behold a bewildered oak With white clouds screaming through its leafy brain.) 'Or was I the single ant, or tinier thing, That crept from the rocks of buried time And dedicated its holy life to climb From atom to beetling atom, jagged grain to grain, Patiently out of the darkness we call sleep Into a hollow gigantic world of light Thinking the sky to be its destined shell, Hoping to fit it well!--' The city dissolves about us, and its walls Are mountains of rock cruelly carved by wind. Sand streams down their wasting sides, sand Mounts upward slowly about them: foot and hand We crawl and bleed among them! Is this Senlin? In the desert of Senlin must we live and die? We hear the decay of rocks, the crash of boulders, Snarling of sand on sand. 'Senlin!' we cry. 'Senlin!' again . . . Our shadows revolve in silence Under the soulless brilliance of blue sky. Yet we would say: there are no rocks at all, Nor desert of sand . . . here by a city wall White lights jewell the evening, black roots freeze, And Senlin turns his head to look at trees. 3 It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening, By a silent shore, by a far distant sea, White unicorns come gravely down to the water. In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately, Stars hang over the purple waveless sea; A sea on which no sail was ever lifted, Where a human voice was never heard. The shadows of vague hills are dark on the water, The silent stars seem silently to sing. And gravely come white unicorns down to the water, One by one they come and drink their fill; And daisies burn like stars on the darkened hill. It is evening Senlin says, and in the evening The leaves on the trees, abandoned by the light, Look to the earth, and whisper, and are still. The bat with horned wings, tumbling through the darkness, Breaks the web, and the spider falls to the ground. The starry dewdrop gathers upon the oakleaf, Clings to the edge, and falls without a sound. Do maidens spread their white palms to the starlight And walk three steps to the east and clearly sing? Do dewdrops fall like a shower of stars from willows? Has the small moon a ghostly ring? . . . White skeletons dance on the moonlit grass, Singing maidens are buried in deep graves, The stars hang over a sea like polished glass . . . And solemnly one by one in the darkness there Neighing far off on the haunted air White unicorns come gravely down to the water. No silver bells are heard. The westering moon Lights the pale floors of caverns