The Poet And The Bird

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

翻译：潘学峰

有一人对一诗人说：“立即从我们当中滚出去！

每当我们在思考地上事，你都高唱神性。

即使站在门楼上的那只褐色小夜莺的叫，

都比你所有的歌曲悦耳动听”

诗人走了，出去哭！---夜莺也停止吟诵;

“现在，为什么？奥！你这夜莺，难道这就是你所有的甜蜜？”

我不会唱我地上的事，只想做诗圣，

让那顶级和谐也包涵着阳光下的最低等。”

诗人走了，出去哭，---最终死在外，---

伴随一片恸哭声，鸟儿飞向墓冢，以死殉他情，---

当我上次来这时，我发誓，听到了歌声

那只是死去诗人的歌，而不是夜莺的叫声。

Said a people to a poet---" Go out from among us straightway!

While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.

There's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways

Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!"

The poet went out weeping---the nightingale ceased chanting;

"Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?"

I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting,

Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun."

The poet went out weeping,---and died abroad, bereft there---

The bird flew to his grave and died, amid a thousand wails:---

And, when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there

Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's.

其实，即使布朗宁对这个问题也是闪烁其词，她也明知道写诗歌没有什么现实的“功用”！只是，对人灵性的一种主张和宣示。

所以，比较功力的说，艺术确实在我们的现实生活里找不到什么实实在在的应用价值！

但是，即使如此，艺术对灵性的主张、宣示和推崇却极大地放大了人的灵性的价值，而这却可以增益人们的智慧！