Schwartz: This Is a Poem I Wrote at Night, Before the Dawn

　　　This Is a Poem I Wrote at Night, Before the Dawn
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
This is a poem I wrote before I died and was reborn:
---After the years of the apples ripening and the eagles soaring,
After the festival here the small flowers gleamed like the first stars,
And the horses cantered and romped away like the experience of skill; mastered and serene
Power, grasped and governed by reins, lightly held by knowing hands.

The horses had cantered away, far enough away
So that I saw the horses’ heads farther and farther away
And saw that they had reached the black horizon on the dusk of day
And were or seemed black thunderheads, massy and ominous waves in the doomed sky:
And it was then, for the first time, then that I said as I must always say
All through living death of night:
It is always darkness before delight!
The long night is always the beginning of the vivid blossom of day.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　(1961)

　　我在破晓前的黑夜中写了这首诗
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　戴尔默·史华兹（1913-66）tr. Fan Jinghua

这首诗，是我在我死亡与未得重生之前写成：
——在此之前的多年里，苹果在成熟、苍鹰在展翅，
小花在此欢庆，犹如初升的星辰一般灿烂，
马儿碎步慢跑，好似轻车熟路；平和而受控的
力量，借由轻执在熟手中的缰绳得以把握、约束。

那些马儿已经跑开，远得
我只能眼看着马头越行越远
眼看着它们到达日近黄昏的黑色地平线
接近不祥的天空下厚重可怖的雷雨云的黑浪：
紧接着，我第一次，说出了我很久以来
必须在黑夜鲜活的死亡中说出的话：
黑暗总是挡在快乐之前！
生机绽放的新一天总是由漫长的黑夜开始。
　　　　　　　　　　1961年