亲爱的莫里斯——这是你的信——你现在能收到我的回信吗?命运留给我你的债务人，你会记得;因为我到南塔开特去了，而你到奥尔良岛去了，当我在虚度光阴，冥思苦想着如何回答的时候，命运却拒绝了我的力量;我手里拿着你那封未回信。这个——在你著名的涂鸦中，它曾经是一个神秘的拳头，楔形文字或迦勒底语的含义在雾中举行。亲爱的莫里斯，(现在我正在写剧本，仔细阅读你的剧本)我从你的文字中得知，你掷出的硬币变成了反面;所以你强迫我在塔奇伍德山见你，或者，也许，你是想告诉我一个画家的病的总和:那是普罗克特先生还是关于医生的什么?没人知道，但是艾迪，不管怎样我都准备好了。因为我们的友谊在问候和告别中总是幸运的，没有生硬的，没有纠缠的，也没有由于彼此心灵的不断磨擦而产生的误用。所以，记忆没有什么可以窒息，只有几样东西，仿佛在飞翔中被捕捉，被陶醉。 Yes, Morris, I am inditing-- Answering at last it seems, How can you read the writing In the vacancy of dreams? I would have you look over my shoulder Ere the long, dark year is colder, And mark that as memory grows older, The brighter it pulses and gleams. And if I should try to render The tissues of fugitive splendour That fled down the wind of living, Will they read it some day in the future, And be conscious of an awareness In our old lives, and the bareness Of theirs, with the newest passions In the last fad of the fashions? * * * * * How often have we risen without daylight When the day star was hidden in mist, When the dragon-fly was heavy with dew and sleep, And viewed the miracle pre-eminent, matchless, The prelusive light that quickens the morning. O crystal dawn, how shall we distill your virginal freshness When you steal upon a land that man has not sullied with his intrusion, When the aboriginal shy dwellers in the broad solitudes Are asleep in their innumerable dens and night haunts Amid the dry ferns, in the tender nests Pressed into shape by the breasts of the Mother birds? How shall we simulate the thrill of announcement When lake after lake lingering in the starlight Turn their faces towards you, And are caressed with the salutation of colour? How shall we transmit in tendril-like images, The tenuous tremor in the tissues of ether, Before the round of colour buds like the dome of a shrine, The preconscious moment when love has fluttered in the bosom, Before it begins to ache? How often have we seen the even Melt into the liquidity of twilight, With passages of Titian splendour, Pellucid preludes, exquisitely tender, Where vanish and revive, thro' veils of the ashes of roses, The crystal forms the breathless sky discloses. The new moon a slender thing, In a snood of virgin light, She seemed all shy on venturing Into the vast night. Her own land and folk were afar, She must have gone astray, But the gods had given a silver star, To be with her on the way. * * * * * I can feel the wind on the prairie And see the bunch-grass wave, And the sunlights ripple and vary The hill with Crowfoot's grave, Where he 'pitched off' for the last time In sight of the Blackfoot Crossing, Where in the sun for a pastime You marked the site of his tepee With a circle of stones. Old Napiw Gave you credit for that day. And well I recall the weirdness Of that evening at Qu'Appelle, In the wigwam with old Sakimay, The keen, acrid smell, As the kinnikinick was burning; The planets outside were turning, And the little splints of poplar Flared with a thin, gold flame. He showed us his painted robe Where in primitive pigments He had drawn his feats and his forays, And told us the legend Of the man without a name, The hated Blackfoot, How he lured the warriors, The young men, to the foray And they never returned. Only their ghosts Goaded by the Blackfoot Mounted on stallions: In the night time He drove the stallions Reeking into the camp; The women gasped and whispered, The children cowered and crept, And the old men shuddered Where they slept. When Sakimay looked forth He saw the Blackfoot, And the ghosts of the warriors, And the black stallions Covered by the night wind As by a mantle. * * * * * I remember well a day, When the sunlight had free play, When you worked in happy stress, While grave Ne-Pah-Pee-Ness Sat for his portrait there, In his beaded coat and his bar