(美)罗伯特·潘·沃伦《几首平静、简单的诗》　（全六首）

六首诗的原文 Some Quiet, Plain PoemsSome Quiet, Plain Poems

（from The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren： pp161-164）

I. Ornithology in a World of Flux

It was only a bird call at evening, unidentified,
As I came from the spring with water, across the rocky back-pasture;
But so still I stood sky above was not stiller than sky in pail-water.

Years pass, all places and faces fade, some people have died,
And I stand in a far land, the evening still, and am at last sure
That I miss more that stillness at bird-call than some things that were to fail later.
(注：第一行bird call(初版),收入诗集You, Emperors, and Others: Poems1957-1960时改为bird-call)

II. Holly and Hickory

Rain, all night, taps the holly.
It ticks like a telegraph on the pane.
If awake in that house, meditating some old folly
Or trying to live an old pleasure again,
I could hear it sluicing the ruts in the lane.

Rain beats down the last leaf of hickory,
But where I lie now rain sounds hint less
At benign sleight of the seasons, or Time’s adept trickery,
And with years I feel less joy or distress
To hear water moving in wheel ruts, star-glintless,

And if any car comes now up that lane,
It carries nobody I could know,
And who wakes in that house now to hear the rain
May fall back to sleep—as I, long ago,
Who dreamed dawnward; and would rise to go.

III. The Well House

What happened there, it was not much,
But was enough. If you come back,
Not much may be too much, even if you have your old knack
Of stillness, and do not touch
A thing, a broken toy of rusted tool or any such
Object you happen to find
Hidden where, uncontrolled, grass and weeds bend.

The clematis that latches the door
Of the ruinous well house, you might break it.
Though guessing the water foul now, and not thirsting to take it,
With thirst from those years before
You might lean over the coping to stare at the water’s dark-glinting floor.
Yes, that might be the event
To change not much to too much, and more than meant.

Yes, Truth is always in balance, and
Not much can become too much so quick.
Suppose you came back and found your heart suddenly sick,
And covered your sight with your hand:
Your tears might mean more than the thing you wept for but did not understand.
Yes, something might happen there
If you came back—even if you just stood to stare.

IV. In Moonlight, Somewhere, They Are Singing

Under the maples at moonrise—
Moon whitening top leaf of the white oak
That rose from the dark mass of maples and range of eyes—
They were singing together, and I woke

From my sleep to the whiteness of moon-fire,
And deep from their dark maples, I
Could hear the two voices shake silver and free, and aspire
To be lost in moon-vastness of the sky.

My young aunt and her young husband
From their dark maples sang, and though
Too young to know what they meant I was happy and
So slept, for I knew I would come to know.

But what of the old man awake there,
As the voices, like vine, climbed up moonlight?
What thought did he think of past time as they twined bright in moon-air,
And veined, with their silver, the moon-flesh of night?

Far off, I recall, in the barn lot,
A mule stamped, once; but the song then
Was over, and for that night, or forever, would not
Resume—but should it again,

Years after, wake me to white moon-fire
On pillow, high oak leaf, and far field,
I should hope to find imaged in what new voices aspire
Some life-faith yet , by my years, unrepealed.

V. In Italian They Call the Bird Civetta

The evening drooped toward owl-call,
The small moon slid pale down the sky,
Dark was decisive in cedars,
But dust down the lane dreamed pale,
And my feet stirred that dust there—
Ah, I see that Kentucky scene
Now only behind my shut eyelids,
As in this far land I stand
At the selfsame ambiguous hour
In the heart’s ambiguity,
And Time is crumpled like paper
Crushed in my hand, while here
The thin moon slants pale down the pale sky,
And the small owl mourns from the moat.

This small owl calls from the moat now,
That other owl answers him
Across all years and miles that
Are the only Truth I have learned,
And back from the present owl-call
Burns backward the blaze of day,
And the passage of years, like a tire’s scream,
Fades now while the reply
Of a dew-damp and downy lost throat spills
To quaver from that home-dark,
And frame between owl-call and owl-call,
Life’s bright parenthesis.
The thin moon slants pale down the pale sky,
And the small owl mourns from the moat.

VI. Debate: Question, Quarry, Dream

Asking what, asking what?—all a boy’s afternoon,
Squatting in the canebrake where the muskrat will come.
Muskrat, muskrat, please now, please, come soon.
He comes, stares, goes, lets the question resume.
He has taken whatever answer may be down to hismud-burrow gloom.

Seeking what, seeking what?—foot soft in cedar-shade.
Was that a deer-flag white past windfall and fern?
No, but by bluffside lurk powers and in the fern-glade
Tall presences, standing all night, like white fox-fire burn.
The small fox lays his head in your hand now and weeps that you go, not to return.

Dreaming what, dreaming what?—lying on the hill at twilight,
Still air stirred only by moth wing, and last stain of sun
Fading to moth-sky, blood-red to moth-white and starligh,
And Time leans down to kiss the heart’s ambition,
While far away, before moonrise, come the town lights, one by one.

Long since that time I have walked night street, heel-iron
Cliking the stone, and in dark in windows have stared.
Question, quarry, dream—I have vented my ire on
My own heart that, ignorant and untoward,
Yearns for an absolute that Time would, I thought, have prepared.

But has not yet. Well, let us debate
The issue. But under a tight roof, clutching a toy,
My son now sleeps, and when the hour grows late,
I shall go forth where the cold constellations deploy
And lift up my eyes to consider more strictly the appalling logic of joy.