After Apple-Picking
by Robert Frost
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
摘蘋果后
王道余 譯
我那長長的雙柱梯子穿過一棵樹
還在指向天堂,
有一只桶就在一旁
我還沒有裝滿;而在樹枝某處,
也許還有沒摘的兩三個蘋果。
但摘蘋果這活兒算告一段落。
夜晚已經(jīng)彌漫著冬眠的氣息,
蘋果的香味:我正在昏昏欲睡。
我今天早上從飲水槽里撈起
一大塊的玻璃。透過這塊東西
我把這草枯霜凍的世界琢磨;
我視線里是揮之不去的怪異。
冰化了,我讓它掉下、摔在地上。
但我其實(shí)
在它掉下之前就已漸有睡意,
我也明知
我的夢境會是什么樣的形狀。
巨大蘋果,這邊浮現(xiàn),那邊淡出,
有蒂的一端,有花的一端,
每個紅褐色的斑點(diǎn)都很清楚。
我的腳弓不僅還殘留著痛傷,
它也殘留著梯子橫杠的擠壓。
樹枝一彎,我能感到梯子一偏。
我還不斷聽到地窖里有聲音
轟轟作響
那是一筐一筐的蘋果在送進(jìn)。
因為我摘蘋果
已經(jīng)摘得太多:我已累得太過
因自己曾經(jīng)期望的巨大收獲。
有十萬萬只水果需要我去摸
手里小心握,扯落,但不能松掉。
只要
砸到地皮,
不管是否碰傷,不管是否刺破,
肯定要?dú)w到用來造酒的那堆,
似乎一錢不值。
誰都能看出這次睡眠,我
會有什么麻煩,無論它是哪種睡眠。
如果他還在,
土撥鼠能說出這會不會有點(diǎn)
像他的長眠,如上所述般襲來,
抑或只是人的安睡?