Marianne Moore - The Mind is an Enchanting Thing 汉译

like the glaze on a

katydid-wing

      subdivided by sun

      till the nettings are legion.

Like Gieseking playing Scarlatti;

like the apteryx-awl

as a beak, or the

kiwi’s rain-shawl

      of haired feathers, the mind

      feeling its way as though blind,

Walks along with its eyes on the ground.

It has memory’s ear

that can hear without

having to hear.

      Like the gyroscope’s fall,

      truly, unequivocal

because trued by regnant certainty,

it is a power of

strong enchantment. It

is like the dove-

       neck animated by

       sun; it is memory’s eye;

It’s conscientious inconsistency.

It tears off the evil; tears

the temptation, the

mist the heart wears,

from its eyes, —if the heart

has a face; it takes apart

dejection. It’s fire in the dove-neck’s

iridescence, in the

of Scarlatti.

       Unconfusion submits

       its confusion to proof; it’s

not a Herod’s oath that cannot change.