在宮殿的陰影中
約翰,讓我們走出霧靄,走出斯德哥爾摩街上持續不斷的朦朧的微雨,讓我們放下風衣領子,摘下帽子,坐在報社里面。
讓我們坐在電報中間——咔嗒咔嗒的聲音——王冠扔進水溝,千年的霍亨索倫王位分崩離析,一輛單駕馬車。
外面是霧靄之夜,雨傘撐起,風衣領子——還有在波羅的海來來往往的所有汽船都亮著燈,舵手清醒冷靜。
電報拍到這里——一個又一個國王離去——黃油很貴:在斯德哥爾摩,沒給我們的面包購買黃油——一點黃油小餡餅就比所有德國王冠要貴重。
約翰,讓我們在霧靄中出去,讓我們卷起風衣領子,走在人們嘲笑著國王的街上。
IN THE SHADOW OF THE PALACE
Let us go out of the fog, John, out of the filmy persistent drhzle on the streets of Stockholm, let us put down the collars of our raincoats,take off our hats and sit in the newspapers office.
Let us sit among the telegrams-clickety-elick-the kaiser' s crown goes into the gutter and the Hohenzollem throne of a thousand years falls to pieces a one-hoss shay.
It is a fog night out and the umbrellas are up and the collars of the raincoats-and all the steamboats up and down the Baltic sea have their lights out and the wheelsmen sober.
Here the telegrams come-one king goes and another-butter is costly: there is no butter to buy for our bread in Stockholm-and a little patty of butter costs more than all the crowns of Germany.
Let us go out in the fog,
John,
let us roll up our raincoat collars and go on the streets where men are sneering at the kings.
我是人民,大眾
我是人民——大眾——人群——群眾。
你知道,世界上的所有偉業都是通過我來完成的。
我是勞動者,發明者,世界的衣食創造者。
我是目擊歷史的觀眾。拿破侖源自于我,林肯也源自于我。他們死了。然后我派來更多的拿破侖和林肯。
我是種子苗床。我是那將支持眾多耕耘活動的大草原。可怕的暴風雨忽視我。我遺忘。我的精華被吮吸出來,被浪費。我遺忘。除了死亡,萬物都走向我,讓我勞動,放棄我所擁有的東西。而我遺忘。
有時,為了讓歷史記住,我低聲咆哮,抖動自己,濺灑幾滴紅色之物。然后——我遺忘。
當我——人民,學會記住,當我——人民,使用昨天的教訓,而且不再忘記去年是誰搶劫了我,是誰把我當作傻瓜來玩弄——于是,整個世界上就不會有說話者說話,嗓音帶著任何一點譏笑或任何遙遠的嘲笑,說出這個名字:“人民。”
大眾——人群——群眾——那時將到達。
IAM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB
I am the people-the mob-the crowd-the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forih more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prame that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes
me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl,
shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then-I forget.
When I,the People,learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool-then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name:“The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob-the crowd-the mass-will amve then.
靜物
在觀光車廂的欄桿上涼爽你的腳跟。
讓引擎把它開到時速九十英里。
從左到右吸收大草原,起伏的土地和新收獲的干草,一幅幅躺在陽光下的新割刈的干草。
一個灰白的村莊斑點一樣馳過,拴在郵局前面的馬從不眨眼。
一座廄棚和十五頭荷斯坦奶牛,一幅黑色掛圖上的白色小點,從不眨眼。
一個漆黑的夜晚,情侶們低語著走過之際,在堪薩斯城的前哨塔樓上,一個信號員把位置保持在窗前,露出青銅塑像一般的安寧。
STILL LIFE
Cool your heels on the rail of an observation car.
Let the engineer open her up for ninety miles an hour.
Take in the prairie right and left, rolling land and new hay crops, swaths of new hay laid in the sun.
A gray village flecks by and the horses hitched in front of the post-office never blink an eye.
A barnyard and fifteen Holstein cows, dabs of white on a black wall map, never blink an eye.
A signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his
place at a window with the serenity of a bronze statue on a darknight when lovers pass whispering.
野餐船
星期天之夜和公園警察相互述說,它黑暗得就像密歇根湖上的一堆黑貓。
一艘碩大的野餐船從索格塔克①的桃子農莊返回芝加哥的家。
千百只電燈泡打破夜晚的黑暗,一群翅膀靜止不動的紅鳥和黃鳥。
一條條花彩沿著甲板欄桿蔓延,一圈圈燈盞從船頭和船尾形成曲線,跳躍到高高的煙囪上。
在我的碼頭,越過那波浪嘶啞的吱嘎咀嚼聲,傳來那為回家的人演奏波蘭民歌的銅管樂器發出的嗡姆吧聲的嘶啞回應。
PICMC BOAT
Sunday night and the park policemen tell each other it is dark as a stack of black cats on Lake Michigan.
A big picnic boat comes home to Chicago from the peach farms ofSaugatuck.
Hundreds of elecUic bulbs break the night's darkness, a flock of red and yellow birds with wings at a stand-still.
Running along the deck railings are festoons and leaping in curves are loops of light from prow and stern to the tall smokestacks.
Over the hoarse crunch of waves at my pier comes a hoarse answer in the thythmic oompa of the brasses playing a Polish folk-song for the home-comers.