路易丝·伊莫金·基尼

在这里你会发现长诗波士顿人彼得·拉格诗人路易丝·伊莫金·基尼

波士顿人彼得·拉格

一母马在橡树旁抓着蹄子,马车又凉又宽敞,适合波士顿人彼得·鲁格,他的小儿子在旁边;在宜人的夏潮中,女人们漫步在车轮旁。“你什么时候回家,爸爸?”“那么,好丈夫,当你不在的时候,你要说:乌云沉重地笼罩着房子。”他直截了当,简短地回答,“在第七天的中午。”“如果上帝愿意,不要错过,天气晴朗。”“告别,告别!但我是谁,一个怕雨的傻瓜?不管上帝愿不愿意,我已经说过了,我都会在这里。”他抱起被太阳晒黑的男孩,从门口飞奔而去; He shakes the spark from the stones below, The bloom from overhead, Till the last roofs of his own town Pass in the morning-red. Upon a homely mission North unto York he goes, Through the long highway broidered thick With elder-blow and rose; And sleeps in sounds of breakers At every twilight's close. Intense upon his heedless head Frowns Agamenticus, Knowing of Heaven's challenger The answer: even thus The Patience that is hid on high Doth stoop to master us. II Full light are all his parting dreams; Desire is in his brain; He tightens at the tavern-post The fiery creature's rein: "Now eat thine apple, six years' child! We face for home again." They had not gone a many mile With nimble heart and tongue, When the lone thrush grew silent The walnut woods among; And on the lulled horizon A premonition hung. The babes at Hampton schoolhouse, The wife with lads at sea, Search with a level-lifted hand The distance bodingly; And farmer folk bid pilgrims in Under a safe roof-tree. The mowers mark by Newbury How low the swallows fly, They glance across the southern roads All white and fever-dry, And the river, anxious at the bend, Beneath a thinking sky. But there is one abroad was born To disbelieve and dare: Along the highway furiously He cuts the purple air. The wind leaps on the startled world As hounds upon a hare; With brawl and glare and shudder ope The sluices of the storm; The woods break down, the sand upblows In blinding volleys warm; The yellow floods in frantic surge Familiar fields deform. From evening until morning His skill will not avail, And as he cheers his youngest born, His cheek is spectre-pale; For the bonnie mare from courses known Has drifted like a sail! III On some wild crag he sees the dawn Unsheathe her scimitar. "Oh, if it be my mother-earth, And not a foreign star, Tell me the way to Boston, And is it near or far?" One watchman lifts his lamp and laughs: "Ye've many a league to wend." The next doth bless the sleeping boy From his mad father's end; A third upon a drawbridge growls: "Bear ye to larboard, friend." Forward and backward, like a stone The tides have in their hold, He dashes east, and then distraught Darts west as he is told, (Peter Rugg the Bostonian, That knew the land of old!) And journeying, and resting scarce A melancholy space, Turns to and fro, and round and round, The frenzy in his face, And ends alway in angrier mood, And in a stranger place, Lost! lost in bayberry thickets Where Plymouth plovers run, And where the masts of Salem Look lordly in the sun; Lost in the Concord vale, and lost By rocky Wollaston! Small thanks have they that guide him, Awed and aware of blight; To hear him shriek denial It sickens them with fright: "They lied to me a month ago With thy same lie to-night!" To-night, to-night, as nights succeed, He swears at home to bide, Until, pursued with laughter Or fled as soon as spied, The weather-drenchèd man is known Over the country side! IV The seventh noon's a memory, And autumn's closing in; The quince is fragrant on the bough, And barley chokes the bin. "O Boston, Boston, Boston! And O my kith and kin!" The snow climbs o'er the pasture wall, It crackles 'neath the moon; And now the rustic sows the seed, Damp in his heavy shoon; And now the building jays are loud In canopies of June. For season after season The three are whirled along, Misled by every instinct Of light, or scent, or song; Yea, put them on the surest trail, The trail is in the wrong. Upon those wheels in any path The rain will follow loud, And he who meets that ghostly man Will meet a thunder-cloud, And whosoever speaks with him May next bespeak his shroud. Tho' ni