G. G. Byron - Stanzas for Music 汉译

“O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater

Felix! In imo qui scatentem

Pector te, pia Nympha sensit.”

—Gray’s Pemata.

1

There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling’s dull decay;

‘Tis not on youth’s smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere Youth itself be past.

2

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness

Are driven o’er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain

The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.

3

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;

It cannot feel for others’ woes, it dare not dream its own;

That heavy chill has frozen o’er the fountain of our tears,

And though the eye may sparkle still, ‘tis where the ice appears.

4

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

‘Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

5

Oh, could I feel as I have felt, -- or be what I have been,

Or weep as I could once have wept, o’er many a vanished scene;

As springs, in deserts found, seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

                                           March 1815.