在诗歌店买的一本诗集，总是不能静下心来读，唯有飞机火车上实在睡不着时可以用来催眠。未想到旅途劳累时找一处喝咖啡的地读书是如此放松的事。
Part.01
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
我在很长时间里受大学时候文学史老师对Tennyson之评价的影响，好像是说一个在世时名利双收的诗人，但艺术成就或许并没有那么高。至于Jack London笔下Eden常常会读到他和Mrs. Browning的诗，也被我认为是因为Tennyson名气太大的缘故。
大概他的名字Alfred的缘故吧，A打头就放在了维多利亚时期诗集的首位。音乐要自己去听，诗也是要自己去读，不能听别人说，读Mariana有点一头雾水-
“she coule not look on hte sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide,
After teh flitting of the bats,
When the thickest dark trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flat
She only said “the night is dreary”
“He cometh not” she said
She said “I am aweary, aweary”
I would that I were dead”.
直到读到Ulysses有种upward的情绪，”Death closes all, but something ere the end”, 不负“桂冠诗人”的盛名。
“I am part of all that i have met:
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
Howe dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d ,not to shine in use!
……
Death cloese all, but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not becoming men that strove with Gods,
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks,
The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs, the deep,
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
This is not too late to seek a newer world,
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyong the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see teh great Achilles, whom we knew
Tho’ much is taken, much abides, and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are-
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in weill
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
他的那些短诗，比如Sweet and Low, 读来mild的感觉，但Tears, Idle Tears这个level的悲秋伤春实属affected melancholy-
“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some devine despair,
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.”
但读到Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal又有耳目一新的感觉。
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in hte porphyry font.
The fire-fly waken, waken thou with me.
……
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake.
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
Part.02
Elizabeth Barret Browning
Mrs. Browning给我印象最深刻的就是40岁时和34岁的Robert Browning私奔到意大利的情节了。不过Robert Browning当时的名气可没有她大。
这位维多利亚时代了不起的女诗人的诗，我读来只觉得肉麻。大概是我打开的方式不对，或者没有读对作品，更大的可能性是英语水平的问题。
她的Sonnet from the Portuguese实在太···太肉麻了… 类似“If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love’s sake only. Do not say “I love her for her smile, her look her way of speaking gently, for a trick of thought that falls in well with mine, and certes brought as sense of pleasant ease on such a day, for these things in themselves may be changed, and love ,so wrought, maybe unwrought so. 让我想起大学时看阿甘正传中阿甘回答女主角提问时老师那蹩脚的解说···
读到XLI段深感这是内心热情的女诗人，XLIV段充分展现了女诗人的外放，至于XLIII段落简直是低配版的《上邪》，比起Robert Burns 的Red, Red Rose 还要肉麻的不行。
她的Grief是passionate+upward的-
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless；
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through teh midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silient-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silience like to death-
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to teh dust beneath
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet;
If it could weep, it could arise and go.
To George Sand中的desire 和unknown passion也是没有太读懂，A Musical Instrument的名字非常吸引我，但也是没有读懂，大概这些都是诗人不同的风格和情绪吧。
未完待续······
走走停停的读书笔记
