The Last Chrysanthemum

The Last Chrysanthemum

             by Thomas Hardy

Why should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.

Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?

It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.

Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season's shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.

Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?

- I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;
Yet it is but one mask of many worn
By the Great Face behind.

最后一朵菊花

       吴迪 译

这朵菊花为何留得如此长久，
来显示自己震颤的羽绒？
现在已是知更鸟哀鸣的时刻，
当花儿已经葬入了坟冢。

在漫长的夏季，束束阳光
被邀探访片片叶儿和花瓣，
太阳为花朵做完了该做的事情，
这朵花那时为何没有开放？

它一定感到那炽热的召唤，
尽管丝毫也没有留心，
但现在已苏醒，当树叶僵尸般掉落，
当树液纷纷地隐身。

它的美色来得太晚，孤独的东西，
季节的光辉已经耗完，
什么也没有为它留下，它只好
在狂暴的风雪中震颤。

难道它有原因逗留，
没有头脑地异想天开，
对于一朵娇嫩美丽的鲜花，
酷冬定会抑制自己的残害？

——瞧我说的，仿佛花朵
生来就有思维的能力；
然而这只是许多面具中的一个，
被戴于背后的上帝。

托马斯•哈代简介