克萊恩的詩歌

哈特萊恩（Hart Crane，1899-1932），美國詩人。此詩是克萊恩發表的第一首詩歌，讀來感情深沉、意象清晰、語言優美、餘韻悠長。

My Gradmother 's Love Letters

Hart Crane

There are no stars tonight

But those of memory,

Yet how much room for memory there is

In the loose girdle of soft rain.

There's even room enough

For the letters of my mother's mother

Elizabeth,

That have been pressed so long

Into to corner of the root

That they are brown and soft,

And liable to melt as snow.

Over the greatness of such space

Steps must be gentle.

It so all hung by an invisible white hair.

It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.

And I ask myself:

“Are your fingers long enough to play

old keys that are but echoes:

Is the silence strong enough

To carry back the music to its source

And back to you again

As though to her?”

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand

Through much of what she would not understand;

And so I stumble, And the rain continues on the roof

With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

外婆的家書

今夜沒有星光閃現

只是往事如煙，

回憶空廖無邊

飄動於綿綿細雨的環抱間。

甚至還有足夠的地方

可以放下我母親的母親

伊麗莎白寫的信件，

那些信塞在屋頂下的一個角落，

在塵封中壓了那麼久長

它們已經變酥變黃，

如同雪片般容易融化。

漫步於空廓的記憶世界

腳步呀務必放得輕捷。

記憶懸掛於一根無形的白髮，

如同顫抖中如網的白樺樹丫。

我捫心自問：

“你的手指是否夠長，

能否奏響那古老琴鍵讓它回聲悠長，

那靜寂的'空氣是否能使樂聲飛揚

讓它飄回遙遠的源泉

然後再次飄到你的心坎

好似傳到她的耳畔？“

然而我願牽着外婆的手

領她穿過她看不懂的宇宙；

我心中困惑，而雨點繼續在屋頂淅瀝作響。

那聲音輕柔，憐愛中夾着歡暢。