卡尔·桑德堡诗21首
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
人家告诉我你太卑劣，我相信：我看到你的女人浓妆艳抹在煤气灯下勾引乡下小伙子。
人家告诉我你太邪恶，我回答：是的，的确我见到凶手杀了人逍遥法外又去行凶。
人家告诉我你太残酷，我的答复是：在妇女和孩子脸上我见到饥饿肆虐的烙印。
我这样回答后，转过身，对那些嘲笑我的城市的人，我回敬以嘲笑，我说：
来呀，给我看别的城市，也这样昂起头，骄傲地歌唱，也这样活泼、粗犷、强壮、机灵。
他把工作堆叠起来时，抛出带磁性的咒骂，在那些矮小孱弱的城市中间，他是一个高大英勇的拳击手。
凶狠如一只狗，舌头伸出准备进攻，机敏有如跟莽原搏斗的野蛮人；
光着头，
挥着锹，
毁灭，
计划，
建造，破坏，再建造，
在浓烟下，满嘴的灰，露出白牙齿大笑，
在命运可怕的重负下，像个青年人一样大笑，
大笑，像个从未输过一场的鲁莽斗士，
自夸，大笑，他腕下脉搏在跳，肋骨下人民的心在跳，
大笑！
笑出年轻人的暴躁、魁梧、喧闹的笑，赤着上身，汗流浃背，他骄傲，因为他是猪屠夫，工具匠，小麦堆垛工，铁路运动家，全国货物的转运人。
Lost
Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor's breast
And the harbor's eyes.
呼叫，应答，无休无止，
好像一个迷路的孩子
泪流满面，心情焦急
寻找港湾的胸怀
寻找港湾的眼睛。
The Harbor
Passing through huddled and ugly walls,
By doorways where women haggard
Looked from their hunger-deep eyes,
Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands,
Out from the huddled and ugly walls,
I came sudden, at the city's edge,
On a blue burst of lake,
Long lake waves breaking under the sun
On a spray-flung curve of shore;
And a fluttering storm of gulls,
Masses of great gray wings
And flying white bellies
Veering and wheeling free in the open.
当我走出拥挤的小巷，
在城边上，眼前突然
展开一片澄蓝的湖面，
长条的波浪扑向弯曲的湖岸，
在阳光下碎裂，抛起水花；
鸥鸟暴雨般猛扑过来，
灰色的翅膀，
雪白的肚腹，
回旋，翱翔，在无边水天。
Halsted Street Car
Come you, cartoonists,
Hang on a strap with me here
At seven o'clock in the morning
On a Halsted street car.
Take your pencils
And draw these faces.
Try with your pencils for these crooked faces,
That pig-sticker in one corner—his mouth—
That overall factory girl—her loose cheeks.
Find for your pencils
A way to mark your memory
Of tired empty faces.
After their night's sleep,
In the moist dawn
And cool daybreak,
Faces
Tired of wishes,
Empty of dreams.
拿出你的铅笔，
画下这些脸吧！
用你的铅笔画下这些畸形的脸：
角落里那个杀猪匠——画他的嘴，
那穿工装的姑娘——她松弛的脸。
好好用你的铅笔
在你的记忆里
记下这些空虚的脸。
他们刚睡了一宿，
在这露零零的清晓，
在这寒森森的早晨。
这些脸
已经倦于希望，
已经空无梦想。
Fog
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Child of the Romans
The dago shovelman sits by the railroad track
Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.
A train whirls by, and men and women at tables
Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,
Eat steaks running with brown gravy,
Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee.
The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna,
Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy,
And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day's work
Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils
Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases
Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars.
古罗马人的后代
那意大利修道工坐在轨道边，
他的中饭只有红肠、面包。
火车一卷而过，餐桌旁的男女
好兴致，玫瑰艳红，水仙嫩黄，
牛排，浇着棕色的肉汁。
草莓、奶油，蛋糕、咖啡。
意大利修道工吃完干涩的午饭，
借运水工一瓢水咽下去，
就去干活，十小时工作还有一半，
保养路基，让玫瑰和水仙
在玻璃花瓶中纹丝不动，
亭亭玉立，站在餐车桌子上。
Mag
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish you never quit your job and came along with me.
I wish we never bought a license and a white dress
For you to get married in the day we ran off to a minister
And told him we would love each other and take care of each other
Always and always long as the sun and the rain lasts anywhere.
Yes, I'm wishing now you lived somewhere away from here
And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand miles away dead broke.
I wish the kids had never come
And rent and coal and clothes to pay for
And a grocery man calling for cash,
Every day cash for beans and prunes.
I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.
I wish to God the kids had never come.
玛格
我祈求上帝从没见到你，玛格，
我但愿你没丢开工作跟我走。
我但愿我们没去买证件，买白纱裙，
为的是那天偷偷溜去找牧师，
告诉他我们相爱，会相互体贴
永远，永远，只要上有太阳下有雨。
是呵，我现在只盼你远住在他乡，
而我是流浪汉，千里外一头撞死在车下。
我只盼孩子们从未出世，
房租、煤费，买鞋买衣，
食品店老板要的是现钱，
每天要钞票买干果、豆子。
我祈求上帝从没见到你，玛格，
我祈求上帝孩子们从未出世。
Under the Harvest Moon
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
在秋月下
在秋月下
当花园夜深
流淌的银汁
滴滴闪光，
死，这白发小丑，
来向你耳语
好像一个漂亮的朋友
老记住你。
在夏日的玫瑰下
当野花叶红
那张扬的绯色
在暮色中潜行，
爱，用纤小的手
来抚摸你，
带来成千记忆，
问你好多
美丽的，无法回答的问题。
Prairie (Excerpts)
The frost loosens corn husks.
The Sun, the rain, the wind
loosen corn husks.
The men and women are helpers.
They are all cornhuskers together.
I see them late in the western evening
in a smoke-red dust.
* * * *
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.
* * * *
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
only an ocean of to-morrows,
a sky of to-morrows.
I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
at sundown:
To-morrow is a day.
大草原（选段）
霜打松了玉米壳，
太阳、雨、风
都打松了玉米壳，
男工女工都只是帮一把，
大家都是剥玉米的人，
我看到他们，在西部的夜晚，
在烟熏红的尘土中。
* * * *
哦大草原母亲，我是你的一个孩子。
我热爱大草原，心中充满痛苦的爱。
我在这里不追求任何东西，只盼望再一个日出，一个燃烧在天空的月亮，一轮明月倒映在河水之中。
* * * *
我谈论新的城市，新的人民，
我告诉你过去是一桶灰，
我告诉你昨天是已停息的风，
是落下西天的夕阳。
我告诉你世上没有别的东西
只有一个充满明天的海洋，
一个充满明天的天空。
我是剥玉米人的兄弟，他们
在日落时说：
明天还是工作日。
Sunset from Omaha Hotel Window
Into the blue river hills
The red sun runners go
And the long sand changes
And to-day is a goner
And to-day is not worth haggling over.
Here in Omaha
The gloaming is bitter
As in Chicago
Or Kenosha.
The long sand changes.
To-day is a goner.
Time knocks in another brass nail.
Another yellow plunger shoots the dark.
Constellations
Wheeling over Omaha
As in Chicago
Or Kenosha.
The long sand is gone
and all the talk is stars.
They circle in a dome over Nebraska.
从奥马哈旅店窗口观日落
太阳的红色光线，
走进蓝色的河山，
长长的沙滩变幻着，
今天已成往事，
今天已不值得留恋。
痛苦的暮色
淡照着奥马哈 3 ，
就像在芝加哥，
就像在基诺沙 4 。
长长的沙滩变幻，
今天已经消逝，
时间又打进一根铜钉，
又一颗黄星射穿黑夜。
星座旋转
俯视着奥马哈，
就像在芝加哥，
就像在基诺沙。
长长的沙滩消逝了，
星星独占了讲台，
在内布拉斯加上空如圆穹回旋。
Prayers of Steel
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through
blue nights
into white stars.
钢的祈祷
请把我放上铁砧，哦上帝，
锤我，揍我，打成一根撬棍。
让我撬动古老的墙，
让我拆松古老的地基。
请把我放上铁砧，哦上帝，
锤我，揍我，打成一根钢钉，
把我钉进拽紧摩天楼的大梁，
用烧红的铆钉安我在主梁上，
让我做个大钉拽紧摩天楼，使它穿过
深蓝的夜空，
刺进银白的星群。
Psalm of Those Who Go Forth Before Daylight
The policeman buys shoes slow and careful; the teamster buys gloves slow and careful; they take care of their feet and hands; they live on their feet and hands.
The milkman never argues; he works alone and no one speaks to him; the city is asleep when he is on the job; he puts a bottle on six hundred porches and calls it a day's work; he climbs two hundred wooden stairways; two horses are company for him; he never argues.
The rolling-mill men and the sheet-steel men are brothers of cinders; they empty cinders out of their shoes after the day's work; they ask their wives to fix burnt holes in the knees of their trousers; their necks and ears are covered with a smut; they scour their necks and ears; they are brothers of cinders.
献给走在晨光之前者的赞美诗
警察买鞋慢挑细拣，卡车司机买手套慢挑细拣，他们挺当心手脚，他们靠手脚吃饭。
送牛奶的人从不跟人拌嘴，他独个儿干活，谁也不跟他搭腔；他干活时城市在安睡；把瓶子放在六百个门口，就是他一天的活计；他得爬二百个楼梯，两匹马跟他做伴，他从不跟人拌嘴。
轧钢工人是灰渣的兄弟；每天下班他们倒出鞋里的灰；老婆给他们补膝盖上的洞；他们的脖子和耳朵总是盖满黑垢，得好好擦洗，他们是灰渣的兄弟。
Grass
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
草
把尸体高高堆起，在奥斯特利茨 5 ，在滑铁卢 6 ，
把他们铲下去，然后让我来干——
我是草，我盖起一切。
把他们高高堆起，在葛底斯堡 7 ，
把他们高高堆起，在伊珀尔 8 ，在凡尔登 9 ，
铲下去，然后让我来干——
两年后，十年后，乘客问乘务员：
这是什么地方？
我们到了哪里？
我是草，
让我来干。
Cool Tombs
When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes... in the dust, in the cool tombs.
Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember?... in the dust, in the cool tombs?
Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns... tell me if the lovers are losers... tell me if any get more than the lovers... in the dust... in the cool tombs.
冰冷的墓
当亚伯拉罕·林肯被推进墓穴，他忘记了那些亲敌分子，忘记了刺客……在尘土中，在冰冷的墓里。
而尤利西斯·格兰特 10 再也想不起华尔街的骗子，现金和附加担保变成了灰……在尘土中，在冰冷的墓里。
波卡洪塔斯 11 的身体，可爱，像白杨，甜美，像十一月的山楂，五月的巴婆果。她会想起这些吗？她还记得这些吗？……在尘土中，在冰冷的墓里？
随便看哪条街吧，满街的人在买吃的穿的，他们朝英雄欢呼，扔糖果，吹锡喇叭……告诉我是否相爱者等于失败者？……告诉我谁能比相爱者所得更多？……在尘土中……在冰冷的墓里。
Upstream
The strong men keep coming on.
They go down shot, hanged, sick, broken.
They live on, fighting, singing, lucky as plungers.
The strong mothers pulling them on…
The strong mothers pulling them from a dark sea, a great prairie, a long mountain.
Call hallelujah, call amen, call deep thanks.
The strong men keep coming on.
逆流而上
坚强的人们坚持向前。
他们倒下，被击毙，被绞死，病倒，粉身碎骨，
他们活下去，战斗，歌唱，像赌徒那样幸运。
坚强的母亲们拖他们向前……
坚强的母亲们把他们拖出黑暗的大海，广袤的草原，绵延的群山。
喊哈利路亚，喊阿门，喊一声多谢多谢，
坚强的人们坚持向前……
Sunsets
There are sunsets who whisper a good-by.
It is a short dusk and a way for stars.
Prairie and sea rim they go level and even
And the sleep is easy.
There are sunsets who dance good-by.
They fling scarves half to the arc,
To the arc then and over the arc.
Ribbons at the ears, sashes at the hips,
Dancing, dancing good-by. And here sleep
Tosses a little with dreams.
日落
有的日落轻轻说一声再见。
那是短促的黄昏，引来星星，
草原和海面变成一条直线，
睡眠多么安宁。
有的日落舞步跳出再见。
把头巾甩开一半，展个圆弧，
面对这圆弧，越过这圆弧。
耳上系着彩条，腰上缠着飘带，
舞啊，舞出再见。睡眠在这里
带着梦，微微翻动。
Maybe
Maybe he believes me, maybe not.
Maybe I can marry him, maybe not.
Maybe the wind on the prairie,
The wind on the sea, maybe,
Somebody, somewhere, maybe can tell.
I will lay my head on his shoulder
And when he asks me I will say yes,
Maybe.
也许
也许他信任我，也许不，
也许我会嫁给他，也许不。
也许草原上的风，
海洋上的风，也许。
某个地方某个人，也许会说出。
我会把头搁在他肩上，
当他问我，我会说：好的，
也许。
Bundles
I have thought of beaches, fields,
Tears, laughter.
I have thought of homes put up—
And blown away.
I have thought of meetings and for
Every meeting a good-by.
I have thought of stars going alone,
Orioles in pairs, sunsets in blundering
Wistful deaths.
I have wanted to let go and cross over
To a next star, a last star.
I have asked to be left a few tears
And some laughter.
几束
我曾想念那些海滩，那些田野，
那些眼泪和笑语。
我曾想念辛苦建造的家——
又转眼给吹垮。
我曾想念那些会面，而每次
会面却都有告别。
我想到星星踽踽独行，
黄鹂成双，而落日莽莽撞撞
愁苦地死亡。
我曾希望丢开一切，径直飞走，
去找另一颗星，找最后一个星球。
我曾要求给我留下几颗眼泪，
和几声笑语。
The People, Yes (Excerpts)
26
You can drum on immense drums
the monotonous daily motions of the people
taking from earth and air
their morsels of bread and love,
a carryover from yesterday into tomorrow.
You can blow on great brass horns
the awful clamors of war and revolution
when swarming anonymous shadowshapes
obliterate old names Big Names
and cross out what was
and offer what is on a fresh blank page.
86
The people, yes, the people,
Until the people are taken care of one way or another,
Until the people are solved somehow for the day and hour,
Until then one hears "Yes but the people what about the people?"
Sometimes as though the people is a child to be pleased or fed
Or again a hoodlum you have to be tough with
And seldom as though the people is a caldron and a reservoir
Of the human reserves that shape history,
The river of welcome wherein the broken First Families fade,
The great pool wherein wornout breeds and clans drop for restorative silence.
Fire, chaos, shadows,
Events trickling from a thin line of flame
On into cries and combustions never expected
The people have the element of surprise.
Where are the kings today?
What has become of their solid and fastened thrones?
Who are the temporary puppets holding sway while anything, "God only knows what," waits around a corner, sits in the shadows and holds an ax, waiting for the appointed hour?
"The czar has eight million men with guns and bayonets.
Nothing can happen to the czar.
The czar is the voice of God and shall live forever.
Turn and look at the forest of steel and cannon
Where the czar is guarded by eight million soldiers.
Nothing can happen to the czar."
They said that for years and in the summer of 1914
In the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen
As a portent and an assurance they said with owl faces:
"Nothing can happen to the czar."
Yet the czar and his bodyguard of eight million vanished
And the czar stood in a cellar before a little firing squad
And the command of fire was given
And the czar stepped into regions of mist and ice
The czar travelled into an ethereal uncharted siberia
While two kaisers also vanished from thrones
Ancient and established in blood and iron—
Two kaisers backed by ten million bayonets
Had their crowns in a gutter, their palaces mobbed.
In fire, chaos, shadows,
In hurricanes beyond foretelling of probabilities,
In the shove and whirl of unforeseen combustions
The people, yes, the people,
Move eternally in the elements of surprise,
Changing from hammer to bayonet and back to hammer,
The hallelujah chorus forever shifting its star soloists.
107
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.
The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
"I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
and it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself
and maybe for others.
I could read and study
and talk things over
and find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time."
The people is a tragic and comic two-face:
hero and hoodlum: phantom and gorilla
twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth: "They
buy me and sell me... it's a game...
sometime I'll break loose..."
Once having marched
Over the margins of animal necessity,
Over the grim line of sheer subsistence
Then man came
To the deeper rituals of his bones,
To the lights lighter than any bones,
To the time for thinking things over,
To the dance, the song, the story,
Or the hours given over to dreaming,
Once having so marched.
Between the finite limitations of the five senses
and the endless yearnings of man for the beyond
the people hold to the humdrum bidding of work and food
while reaching out when it comes their way
for lights beyond the prisms of the five senses,
for keepsakes lasting beyond any hunger or death.
This reaching is alive.
The panderers and liars have violated and smutted it.
Yet this reaching is alive yet
for lights and keepsakes.
The people know the salt of the sea
and the strength of the winds
lashing the corners of the earth.
The people take the earth
as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope.
Who else speaks for the Family of Man?
They are in tune and step
with constellations of universal law.
The people is a polychrome,
a spectrum and a prism
held in a moving monolith,
a console organ of changing themes,
a clavilux of color poems
wherein the sea offers fog
and the fog moves off in rain
and the Labrador sunset shortens
to a nocturne of clear stars
serene over the shot spray
of northern lights.
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise.
You can't hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for
keeps, the people march:
"Where to? what next?"
人民，是的（选段）
第26章
你能在巨大的鼓上敲出
人民每天单调的行动？
他们从地里，从空中，
抓出面包，抓出爱情，
这就是从昨天做到明天的事。
你能在巨大的铜号上吹奏
战争和革命的宏大声响？
当无名的黑影蜂拥而出，
擦去了昔日的赫赫大名，
把旧有的事物一笔涂去，
翻过了一页，洁白，崭新。
第86章
人民，是的，人民，
除非人民这样那样地得到关怀，
除非人民哪怕一天一小时得到抚慰，
那时有人听到：“是的，但人民，人民有什么了不起？”
有时人民显得像小孩，要哄，要喂，
有时人民是流氓恶棍，要严厉惩处，
很少被看作是一口大锅，一个水库，
蓄容着人类创造历史的无穷精力，
是迎接百川的河流，那零落的前代已经消失，
是汇集众水的大泽，精疲力尽的种族滴入，沉默地积储。
烽火、混乱、黑暗，
事件滴滴成珠，从燃烧的细线滚落，
化为惊呼，化为火焰，谁能逆料，
人民包含着叫人吃惊的因素。
当权的国王们而今何在？
他们固如金汤的宝座又在哪里？
这些匆匆过客似的傀儡高视阔步，而一个“只有天知道”的人等在角落，坐在阴影里，手持利斧，等着预定的时机。
“沙皇有八百万大兵，全副武装，
谁能奈何沙皇？
沙皇是上帝的代言人，千秋万岁，
瞧一瞧那钢炮的森林，
八百万士兵卫护着沙皇，
谁又奈何得了沙皇？”
这话他们说了多少年，而在1914年夏天
我主降世后第一千九百一十四年，
这伙脸像猫头鹰的人还这样保证：
“谁也奈何不了沙皇。”
可是沙皇和他的八百万卫兵烟消云散。
沙皇站在地窖里，面对人数不多的行刑队，
开枪的命令发出了：
沙皇去的那地方，只有凄雾寒冰，
沙皇流放的西伯利亚，地图上也没画明。
还有两个日耳曼王也从宝座上消失，
那铁血宝座，本是天长日久，牢靠稳妥——
这两个国王也有一千万刺刀做后盾，
却让皇冠落进阴沟，宫廷遭到袭击。
烽火、混乱、黑暗，
在无法逆料、无从估猜的狂风中，
在无从预见的奔腾旋转的火焰中，
人民，是的，人民，
永远带着令人吃惊的因素前进，
从锤子变成刺刀，又变成锤子，
合唱队一直在换领唱的明星。
第107章
人民能生存下去，
边犯错边学习，人民能活下去，
他们会上当，被出卖，再被出卖，
会走回哺育人的土地，像根深入土里，
但人民特别能复活，能卷土重来，
对他们这种本领你不能一笑置之，
暴风雨的演出幕间，猛犸象在休息。
人民，经常昏昏欲睡，精疲力尽，谜一般深沉，
却是一个巨大的集合，很多单元都在说：
“我得挣钱糊口。
从早忙到晚，
刚能混日子。
要是我有时间
我能再做些事，
为自己，也为别人。
我能读书，研究，
也能高谈阔论，
也能探幽究微，
可这都花时间，
我但愿我有空。”
人民是悲剧和喜剧中的两面角色，
是英雄，也是歹徒：是幻影，是猩猩，
扭歪了嘴脸在呻吟：“他们
买了我，又卖了我……好一出把戏……
总有一天我要挣脱……”
只要坚持向前
越过动物性需要的边界，
越过单纯存在的严峻限度，
人民就来了
走向骨髓中深沉的仪式，
走向比骨头更轻的光线，
走向仔细思考的时辰，
走向舞蹈、歌曲和小说，
或走向预定用来梦想的时间，
只要大步向前走。
在五种感官的有限边界
和超越感觉的无穷愿望之间，
人民守着衣食住行的卑微需求，
但只要够得到，他们会伸出手来
去捕捉超越感官棱镜的光线，
捕捉比饥饿与死亡更永久的纪念品，
他们机灵地攫取着。
煽动家和骗子破坏、污损了这种需要。
但他们机敏地攫取着，
攫取那光线，那纪念品。
人民了解海中的盐，
了解风用多大的力量
吹拂大地的每个角落。
人民把大地
当作休息的坟墓，当作希望的摇篮，
还有谁为人类这家族代言？
他们与体现宇宙规律的星座
合着调子，合着步伐。
人民有丰富的色彩，
像光谱，像棱镜
嵌在独石碑的顶端。
是变化的主题那控制的器官，
是五彩缤纷诗歌的彩琴， 13
当海送出雾，
当雾化为雨，
当拉布拉多 14 短促的黄昏
变成星光清亮的夜曲，
一片晶明覆盖在
北极星短短的辉光上。
钢铁厂上空生机盎然，
火喷出白光，锯齿状，
射向青铜色的黄昏，
人要很久才能走到目的地，
人最终将取胜，
兄弟终将与兄弟并肩而立。
这古老的铁砧嘲笑许多打碎了的铁锤。
的确有人不可能被收买，
浴火而生在火里挺自在，
星星鸦雀无声，
你无法阻挡风的狂吹，
时间是个伟大的教师，
有谁不怀希望而能活下去？
在黑暗中，在悲哀的重负下，
人民在前进，
在黑夜里，头上撒一满铲星星
留作纪念，人民在前进：
“朝哪儿去？下一站到哪里？”
Under the Capitol Dome
There are those who speak of confusion today
as though yesterday there was order
rather than confusion.
There are those who point to confusion today
as though if given a chance
they could tomorrow transform it into order.
There are those who find benefits in confusion
and make it a labor of delight
to render any confusion more confounded.
There are those who expect today's confusion
to be followed by another tomorrow,
these two confusions being different from each other.
The confusions of being born are followed
by the confusions of how to live
until a final moment when a stilled heart
holds release complete and absolute
from all former and earlier confusions.
When one confusion transforms itself into another
there has been a death and a birth
though the newborn confusion
becomes known only across time and silence.
When a confusion results
from seeing what is not all there
it is an identical twin of the confusion
to follow the hearing of what is not all there.
When a witness says
there was confusion in what he saw
and he can't therefore be sure of what he saw,
he may be a strictly honest witness.
A fine sunrise or an elegant sunset
achieves moving colors and masses of changing light
in a properly organized confusion.
The orderly marches
of the night stars and constellations
when looked at by powerful telescopes
hold flagrant and flaming confusions.
那里有人指责今天的混乱，
好像只要他们上台
明天就秩序井然。
那里有人觉得混乱有利可图，
大卖力气，自得其乐，
把一切弄得更加纷乱。
那里有人要让明天的混乱
接着今天的混乱，
但两种混乱有所不同。
紧接着诞生的混乱
是如何活下去的混乱，
直到最后静止的心脏
从所有先前的混乱中
毅然决然地解脱出来。
当一个混乱化为另一个混乱，
其中就有死亡，就有诞生。
当然只有通过沉默，通过等待，
才能了解新生的混乱。
看不到全部情况
引出的混乱
也就与偏听偏信
造成的混乱差之不远。
当一个观察者说
他见到的东西里有混乱，
他对所见的情况不能肯定，
作为观察者，他忠实、严谨。
日出美奂美轮，日落灿然烂然，
喷洒出运动的色，变幻的光，
形成结构完美的混乱。
夜空的星辰、星座，
整整齐齐地行进，
但我们用强大的望远镜
看到光焰熊熊的混乱。
Name Us a King
Name us a king
Who shall live forever—
a peanut king, a potato king,
a gasket king, a brass-tack king,
a wall-paper king with a wall-paper crown
and a wall-paper queen with wall-paper jewels.
Name us a king
so keen, so fast, so hard,
he shall last forever—
and all the yes-men square shooters
telling the king, "Okay Boss, you shall
last forever! and then some!"
telling it to an onion king, a pecan king,
a zipper king or a chewing gum king,
any consolidated amalgamated syndicate king—
listening to the yes-men telling him
he shall live forever, he is so keen,
so fast, so hard,
an okay Boss who shall never bite the dust,
never go down and be a sandwich for the worms
like us—the customers,
like us—the customers.
给咱弄个大王来吧
给咱弄个大王来吧，
他将永远健康——
花生王，土豆王，
垫圈儿王，铜扣儿王，
墙纸王带着墙纸王冠，
墙纸王后，满身墙纸珠光。
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