颂诗译选
天猎
我逃避祂，历经白昼，到夜间；
我逃避祂，历经年复一年；
我逃避祂，历经我自己思念中
错综的迷径；在凄迷的眼淚里
我躲藏祂，在连续的嘻笑后面。
我急速的攀登希望的远景，
又吶喊，流汗，
在下边巨大可怕的深渊，
那強壮的腳步，在身后跟着，跟在后边。
但不是匆忙的追赶，
腳步並不慌乱，
从容的速度，紧促而不失庄严，
腳步节奏中－声音响起
比那腳步更近迩－
“你这背离我的，万有都背离你。”
我抗辩，逾越法制的边限，
有许多可爱的窗槛，垂着红的窗帘，
其间有恩爱的纠缠
（我虽知道祂的爱跟随着，
卻是深深的惧怕
惟恐有了祂，就必须舍棄所有的其他爱恋）；
但是，如果那小窗扉只开启一扇，
祂的狂风将冲进里面。
惧怕不知如何逃，爱卻要追赶。
我奔逃，超越世界的边缘，
闯进了群星的金衢街道间，
扰乱了他们的柵栏寻求遮掩；
穿越那些芳香的瓶罐
搖动月亮的银门发声铿然。
我对清晨说：快来；告诉夜：不要迟延；
用你的新花掩埋我
躲避那极端的爱的眼！
撒出你朦胧的纱环绕我，叫祂看不见！
我试遍祂所有的仆役，终於发现
我虽然背逆他们卻贞坚，
他们对主忠实对我卻多变，
他们的违逆是真实，赤诚是欺骗。
我向所有迅速的东西请求速援；
攀悬在每阵呼啸的风长鬣上面。
但不论他们如何猛驰，疾驶，
那碧蓝的长空平原；
或是乘驾雷电，
他们紧附着祂的车橫越上天
绕蹄溅着飞行的电闪－
惧怕不知如何逃，爱卻要追赶。
仍然不匆忙的追赶，
腳步並不慌乱，
从容的速度，紧促而不失庄严，
那腳步跟在后边，
语音比步声更加清晰－
“沒有什么不接纳我，而能接纳你。”
我不再寻求从前的迷途
那脸孔是男或是女；
但仍然在小孩童的眼中
似乎有些什么，什么可以给我答覆；
至少他们会支持我，一定支持我！
我转向他们满怀着希望；
可是，正当他们忽然示爱凝眸
将要把答案倾吐，
天使抓住了头发拉他们离去。
“来吧，你们大自然另外的儿女－”
我说：“与我同享你们美好的欢娛；
让我亲吻欢迎你，
让我与你拥抱轻抚，
嬉戏
弄我们母亲飘扬的长发，
欢宴
在她风为牆壁的宮府，
她湛蓝的顶盖遮覆，
照你纯洁的样子，
从杯中，倾饮着
晶莹明亮的阳光。
这些都过去了；
我曾是他们甘美团契中之一员－
开启过自然的秘密之闩。
我知道一切的意含
在上天固执的脸；
我知道云如何升起
狂野的海喷吐沫涎；
所有的生或死亡
升或沉降－使他们能形成－
我自己的心境，哀悼或逍遙－
同他们欢乐或悲惨。
我很忧闷在晚间
当她燃点她闪亮的灯盏
围绕白昼死去的尊严。
我欢笑在清晨的眼帘。
我欢腾又悲哀随着气候变換，
天与我一同哭泣，
天的甜淚和我的融合成咸；
夕阳的心赤红震颤
我把自己跳动的心並放在那边，
二者的热交会相连；
但不是如此，如此作，只是消除我人生的伤痛。
我的眼淚徒然沾湿了上天灰色的面颊。
噢！因为我们彼此言语不通，
我和自然界；虽然我言语有声－
他们的言语卻是靜默，他们只是移动。
自然，可怜的继母，不能夠舒解我的枯旱；
如果她还承认我，让她
解下那蓝色的胸衫，向我显露出
她双乳的柔软；
她从沒有用一滴的乳汁滋润
我嘴唇的干渴。
逼近更逼近的追赶，
腳步並不慌乱，
从容的速度，紧促而不失庄严，
有个声音传来的更快捷
在腳步的声响以先－
“注意，如果不满足我，沒有什么会满足你。”
我无助的等待你爱的下击！
一件一件的你解除了我的武装，
又打倒使我屈膝；
我全然无法反抗。
我想，我睡去，又醒觉，
慢慢的，我发现在睡中被剝脫得赤裸。
我曾卤莽的以充沛的青年精力，
在我撼动巨柱的时刻
尽情的任意生活；沾满了污跡，
我站在岁月堆积的灰尘里－
我糟蹋的青年死去沉埋在灰堆底。
我破碎的年日化成煙逝去，
如泡沫升胀又破碎在阳光下的水面。
是的，现在都已破失：梦幻
和作梦的人，琵琶和弄絃者；
超越我缀连幻想，在它编织的花样里
运转大地犹如小玩意在腕间，
腱索都嫌不夠強健
因为地上沉重的忧伤过於充满。
啊！你的爱岂是
一种耶草，虽则是不衰亡的野草，
不让任何花儿滋长只自己扩展？
啊！必定－
无限的设计者－
啊！你岂是定要烧焦树林才可造成木炭？
我青年的力量耗尽抖颤着归於尘土；
现在我的心如同破裂的泉源，
眼淚从里面流积着，
从阴湿的思想不停的流
分溅在我心灵叹息的枝头。
既如此，又将如何？
果浆这样苦，果皮的味道何以堪？
我隐约的猜想迷雾中的时间朦胧难辨；
从永恆隐藏的城垣
卻偶尔有号角声响起；
暂时震动迷雾闪开空隙一片，然后
在半瞥之后楼阙重被遮掩。
但到祂传召之后
我才得看见，展现
绚丽的紫袍，柏叶的冠冕；
我知道祂的名，号角已经宣示。
是否人的心或生命能出产
你的庄稼，你那产地
必须用粪肥和腐朽的死？
在那长久的追逐之后
巨响已近在身边；
那声音包围我像是突来的海涛一般：
“是否你的土地已全失尽
像破而又碎的瓦片？
看哪，因你逃避我，所有的都逃避你！
奇怪，可怜，无益的东西，
何必让其他的把你的爱隔离？
只有我从无有造出万有。”祂说。
“人性的爱需要有人间的成就
你有什么可值得夸口－
所有泥块的人中最肮脏的泥块？
唉，你不知道
你何等不值得任何的爱！
你能找到谁肯救卑贱的你
除了我，除非唯一的我？
所有我从你拿去的我剝夺
並非是要害你，
是要你能单从我手中寻得。
你一切童騃的误意
幻想是损失，我都已经为你收存在家里；
起来，握紧我的手，来！”
那腳步在我旁停住；
或许是我的阴郁，
祂的手荫伸出慰抚？
“啊，最愚昧，最软弱，最盲目的，
我是那一位你寻求追逐！
你驱动我的爱，爱驱使我。”
英国诗人汤朴生，父亲为执业医生。父亲希望他读神学，但他选择习医学。不过，他习医失败，贫病交迫，为止病痛，又染上了鸦片的嗜好，沦落伦敦街头，卖火柴和报纸为生，一度寄居在修鞋店里帮閒。但他总不肯放棄所喜爱的文学和鸦片。后来，有一个编辑Wilfred Meynell发现他的才华，在其杂志上发表了他的诗，並送他入医院疗养恢复健康，又助他刊行诗集。他的诗出版后，勃朗宁（Robert Browning）读过后大为讚赏；特別是“天猎”诗，他的朋友Coventry Patmore称之为英国文学中的最佳作品。
汤朴生的诗，很像十七世纪英国宗教诗人的作品。在“天猎”诗中，有丰富的意喻，还像奧古斯丁（St. Augustine），敘述自己的忏悔，特別是神的恆久忍耐和不可抗拒的恩典。人在神以外追寻满足，结果不过是虛空和失望；也描述人的逃避与神恩的追逐，仿佛是诗篇第一百三十九篇的演述。
The Hound of Heaven
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days,
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat - and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet -
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities
(For, though I knew His love Who followed,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside).
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden- to Eve, Be soon;
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover-
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn of their feet: -
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat -
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
I sought no more that after which I strayed
In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children's eyes
Seems something, something that replies;
They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's - share
With me" said I, "your delicate fellowship;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured dais,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."
So it was done:
I in their delicate fellowship was one-
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
On the willful face of skies;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumed of the wild sea-snortings;
All that's born or dies
Rose and drooped with; made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine;
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah! we know not what each other says,
These things and I; in sound I speak-
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts o' her tenderness:
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noised Feet
A voice comes yet more fleet-
"Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me!"
Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou has hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenseless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years-
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;
Even the linked fantasies, in whole blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must-
Designer infinite!-
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes, purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields
Be dunged with rotten death?
Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught," (He said),
"And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited-
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to live ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
Francis Thompson, 1859-1907
English Poet