Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnets from the Portuguese:(I) 汉译

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
   Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
   Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
   I saw in gradual vision through my tears
   The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years--
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
   So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
   And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
“Guess now who holds thee?”-- “Death,” I said. But there
   The silver answer rang—“Not Death, but Love.”<?xml:namespace prefix = o />