George Gordon Byron - Epistle to Augusta 汉译

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name  <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Dearer and purer were, it should be thine; 

Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim 

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: 

Go where I will, to me thou art the same—       

A loved regret which I would not resign. 

There yet are two things in my destiny,— 

A world to roam through, and a home with thee. 

 

The first were nothing—had I still the last, 

It were the haven of my happiness;        

But other claims and other ties thou hast, 

And mine is not the wish to make them less. 

A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past 

Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; 

Reversed for him our grandsire’s fate of yore,—        

He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. 

 

If my inheritance of storms hath been 

In other elements, and on the rocks 

Of perils, overlook’d or unforeseen, 

I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks,      

The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen 

My errors with defensive paradox; 

I have been cunning in mine overthrow, 

The careful pilot of my proper woe. 

 

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.      

My whole life was a contest, since the day 

That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d 

The gift,—a fate, or will, that walk’d astray; 

And I at times have found the struggle hard, 

And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:        

But now I fain would for a time survive, 

If but to see what next can well arrive. 

 

Kingdoms and empires in my little day 

I have outlived, and yet I am not old: 

And when I look on this, the petty spray       

Of my own years of trouble, which have roll’d 

Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: 

Something—I know not what—does still uphold 

A spirit of slight patience;—not in vain, 

Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.       

 

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir 

Within me,—or perhaps a cold despair, 

Brought when ills habitually recur,— 

Perhaps a kindlier clime, or purer air, 

(For even to this may change of soul refer,     

And with light armour we may learn to bear), 

Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not 

The chief companion of a calmer lot. 

 

I feel almost at times as I have felt 

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,        

Which do remember me of where I dwelt 

Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, 

Come as of yore upon me, and can melt 

My heart with recognition of their looks; 

And even at moments I could think I see       

Some living thing to love—but none like thee. 

 

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create 

A fund for contemplation—to admire 

Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; 

But something worthier do such scenes inspire;      

Here to be lonely is not desolate,  

For much I view which I could most desire, 

And, above all, a lake I can behold 

Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. 

 

Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow        

The fool of my own wishes, and forget 

The solitude, which I have vaunted so, 

Has lost its praise in this but one regret; 

There may be others which I less may show!— 

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet      

I feel an ebb in my philosophy, 

And the tide rising in my alter’d eye. 

  

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, 

By the old Hall which may be mine no more. 

Leman’s is fair; but think not I forsake      

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore; 

Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, 

Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; 

Though, like all things which I have loved, they are 

Resign’d for ever, or divided far.