【美文欣赏☆The Shadow on the Stone】你能翻译吗? 20081021

Thomas Hardy

托马斯·哈代（Thomas Hardy,1840-1928）生于英格兰多尔切斯特的一个小村子里。父亲是位建筑师。早年，托马斯·哈代从事建筑事务，但是他最爱写诗，他由于写诗难得有出版机会，随转向写小说，后以写小说而成名。1896年，他发表了他的最后一部小说《无名的裘德》（Jude the Obscure），以后即转向写诗，整个晚年他都用来写诗。

早年，他浪迹于森林田野和草原上，听到不少民谣和民间故事，多为荒凉的路口和坟园故事，逐渐形成一种悲观失望的人生观，认为人就是孤立无援与上帝奋斗。但在他的作品中，我们看到哈代对受苦的人民充满同情。

　

The Shadow on the Stone

　

I went by the Druid stone

That broods in the garden white and lone,

And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows

That at some moments fall thereon

From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,

And they shaped in my imagining

To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders

Threw there when she was gardening.

　

I thought her behind my back,

Yea, her I long had learned to lack,

And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me,

Though how do you get into this old track?"

And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf

As a sad response; and to keep down my grief

I would not turn my head to discover

That there was nothing in my belief.

　

Yet I wanted to look and see

That nobody stood at the back of me;

But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision

A shape which, somehow, there may be."

So I went on softly from the glade,

And left her behind me throwing her shade,

As she were indeed an apparition-

My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

　

译文参考

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