Skip to content

“Large Red Man Reading”, Wallace Stevens

August 25, 2020

There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.

There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,

That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost
And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves
And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly

And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,
The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:
Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,

Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,
Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are
And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.

有灵魂回到地上听他的话语,
当他坐在那里,高声地读大的蓝色写板。
他们来自星的荒野并曾期待更多。

他们回来听他从生命的诗里读出,
炉上的锅,桌上的罐,其间的郁金香。
他们会为赤足走进现实而哭泣,

会哭泣并欣喜,在寒霜中颤抖
并叫喊以再次感受它,将手指划过叶子
与最盘绕的荆棘,会抓住丑陋的事

并大笑,当他坐在那读,从紫色的写板中,
存在与其表现的轮廓,其法则的音节:
诗,诗,如实的字符,预言的诗句,

在这些耳中与这些消瘦,耗尽了的心中,
呈现色彩,呈现形状与尺寸如事物本身
并为其诉说感受,而这正是他们曾缺少的。

  • Poetry
  • Translation
PrevNext