罗伯特·西摩·布里奇斯

在这里你会发现长诗选自《美丽的见证》诗人罗伯特·西摩·布里奇斯

选自《美丽的见证》

正是在那美丽的时刻,夕阳用玫瑰色铺就了他那浑浊的床,在他轮流向他所爱的作品道晚安的时候,把它们淹没;人类所有的塔楼、庙宇和大厦,都在光明的告别中面对着他,他们还没有在黑暗中赤身露体地从他们的浮华中爬出来;——而凡人的眼睛,如果他们不是因为疲劳而闭上眼睛,也不是因为灯光下的工作而劳累————这是给那些无家可归的乞丐的一种神圣的恩赐,让他们在无依无靠的守夜中,注视着在太空的大窗户后面,有什么地方拉开了帘子————上天的珍宝同伴不可接近地绕着圈子————我只身与缪斯漫步在她的思想花园中,畅所欲言,畅谈那些在我周围固执地摇摆不定的迷梦;就像小蝙蝠从它们的帷幔里出来,在夏天的黄昏里,头顶上飞来飞去,发出微弱的叫声,在星星和花朵之间低沉地飞来飞去。然后我陷入一种奇怪的错觉,一种难以言喻的幻觉;我也是这样,好像一个人在床上睡得很熟,醒了以后,梦见自己行事正直,心里无愧。但contrawise;事实上我醒着,我以为我在睡觉,在做梦;在那个梦里,我以为我在讲一个梦;我也不像一个真正从睡梦中醒来的人,想把自己的梦告诉一个朋友,但由于他的记忆太少,找不到说话的语言——我却不是这样; for my tale was my dream and my dream the telling, and I remember wondring the while I told it how I told it so tellingly. And yet now 'twould seem that Reason inveighed me with her old orderings; as once when she took thought to adjust theology, peopling the inane that vex'd her between God and man with a hierarchy of angels; like those asteroids wherewith she later fill'd the gap 'twixt Jove and Mars. Verily by Beauty it is that we come as WISDOM, yet not by Reason at Beauty; and now with many words pleasing myself betimes I am fearing lest in the end I play the tedious orator who maundereth on for lack of heart to make an end of his nothings. Wherefor as when a runner who hath run his round handeth his staff away, and is glad of his rest, here break I off, knowing the goal was not for me the while I ran on telling of what cannot be told. For not the Muse herself can tell of Goddes love; which cometh to the child from the Mother's embrace, an Idea spacious as the starry firmament's inescapable infinity of radiant gaze, that fadeth only as it outpasseth mortal sight: and this direct contact is 't with eternities, this springtide miracle of the soul's nativity that oft hath set philosophers adrift in dream; which thing Christ taught, when he set up a little child to teach his first Apostles and to accuse their pride, saying, 'Unless ye shall receive it as a child, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' So thru'out all his young mental apprenticehood the child of very simplicity, and in the grace and beauteous attitude of infantine wonder, is apt to absorb Ideas in primal purity, and by the assimilation of thatt immortal food may build immortal life; but ever with the growth of understanding, as the sensible images are more and more corrupt, troubled by questioning thought, or with vainglory alloy'd, 'tis like enought the boy in prospect of his manhood wil hav cast to th' winds his Baptism with his Babyhood; nor might he escape the fall of Ev'ryman, did not a second call of nature's Love await him to confirm his Faith or to revoke him if he is whollylapsed therefrom. And so mighty is this second vision, which cometh in puberty of body and adolescence of mind that, forgetting his Mother, he calleth it 'first Love'; for it mocketh at suasion or stubbornness of heart, as the oceantide of the omnipotent Pleasur of God, flushing all avenues of life, and unawares by thousandfold approach forestalling its full flood with divination of the secret contacts of Love,-- of faintest ecstasies aslumber in Nature's calm, like thought in a closed book, where some poet long since sang his throbbing passion to immortal sleep-with coy tenderness delicat as the shifting hues that sanctify the silent dawn with wonder-gleams, whose evanescence is the seal of their glory, consumed in self-becoming of eternity; til every moment as it flyeth, cryeth 'Seize! Seize me ere I die! I am the Life of Life.' 'Tis thus by near approach to an eternal presence man's heart with divine furor kindled and possess'd falleth in blind surrender; and finding therewithal in fullest devotion the full reconcilement betwixt his animal and spiritual desires, such welcome hour of bliss sta