英国文学诗歌整理

The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

COME live with me, and be my love;

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,

And a thousand fragrant posies;

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair-lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love.

Song to Celia

By：Ben Jonson

Drink to me only with thine eyes

And I will pledge with mine

Or leave a kiss but in the cup

And I'll not look for wine

The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine

But might I of Jove's Nectar sup

I would not change for thine

I sent thee late a rosy wreath

Not so much honoring thee

As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be

But thou there on did'st only breathe And sent'st it back to me

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear Not of itself. but thee

John Donne - Song

Go, and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the Devil's foot,

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till Age snow white hairs on thee,

Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear

Nowhere

Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage8 were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet; Though9 she were true when you met her, And last till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False, ere I come, to two or three.

The Good-Morrow

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then,

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?

'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee. And now good morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room, an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls, to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "The breath goes now," and some say, "No:"

情正如德高的人逝世很安然

对灵魂轻轻的说声走

悲恸的朋友们聚在一起

有的说断气了，有的说没有

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;

'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

让我们化了，一声也不作

泪浪也不翻，叹风也不兴。

那是亵渎我们的欢乐

要是对俗人讲我们的爱情。

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears; Men reckon what it did, and meant;

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.

地动带来灾害和惊恐

人们估计，它干什么，要怎么样

可是那些天体的震动

虽然大的多，什么也不伤

Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.

世俗的男女彼此的相好

（他们的灵魂是官能）就最好

别离，因为那就会取消，

组成爱恋的那一套东西。

But we by a love so much refin'd,

That ourselves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind,

Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. 我们被爱情提炼的纯净

自己却不知存什么念头

互相在心灵上得到了保证

再也不愁碰不到眼睛，嘴和手。

Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

两个灵魂达成了一片

虽说我得走，却并不变成

破裂，而只是向外延伸

象金子打到了薄薄的一层

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the' other do.

我就算两个吧，两个却这样。

和一副两脚的圆规情况相同

And though it in the centre sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

虽然它一直是在中心

可是另一个去天涯海角

它就侧了身，倾听八垠

那一个一回家，它就马上挺腰。

Such wilt thou be to me, who must

Like th' other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end, where I begun.

你对我就会这样子，我一生

像另外那一脚，得侧身打转

你坚定，我的圆圈也会准

我才会终结在开始的地方

Summary

The speaker explains that he is forced to spend time apart from his lover, but before he leaves, he tells her that their farewell should not be the occasion for mourning and sorrow. In the same way that virtuous men die mildly and without complaint, he says, so they should leave without “tear-flo ods” and “sigh-tempests,” for to publicly announce their feelings in such a way would profane their love. The speaker says that when the earth moves, it brings “harms and fears,” but when the spheres experience “trepidation,” though the impact is greater, it is also innocent. The love of “dull sublunary lovers” cannot survive separation, but it removes that which constitutes the love itself; but the love he shares with his beloved is so refined and “Inter-assured of the mind” that they need not worry about missing “eyes, lips, and hands.”

Though he must go, their souls are still one, and, therefore, they are not enduring a breach,

them. If their souls are separate, he says, they are like the feet of a compass: His lover?s soul is the fixed foot in the center, and his is the foot that moves around it. The firmness of the cen ter foot makes the circle that the outer foot draws perfect: “Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end, where I begun.”

Form

The nine stanzas of this Valediction are quite simple compared to many of Donne?s poems, which utilize strange metrical patterns overlaid jarringly on regular rhyme schemes. Here, each four-line stanza is quite unadorned, with an ABAB rhyme scheme and an iambic tetrameter meter.

Commentary

“A Valediction: forbidding Mourning” is one of Donne?s most famous and simplest p oems and also probably his most direct statement of his ideal of spiritual love. For all his erotic carnality in poems, such as “The Flea,” Donne professed a devotion to a kind of spiritual love that transcended the merely physical. Here, anticipating a physical separation from his beloved, he invokes the nature of that spiritual love to ward off the “tear-floods” and “sigh-tempests” that might otherwise attend on their farewell. The poem is essentially a sequence of metaphors and comparisons, each describing a way of looking at their separation that will help them to avoid the mourning forbidden by the poem?s title.

First, the speaker says that their farewell should be as mild as the uncomplaining deaths of virtuous men, for to weep would be “profanation of our joys.” Next, the

speaker compares harmful “Moving of th? earth” to innocent “trepidation of the spheres,” equating the first with “dull sublunary lovers? love” and the second with their love, “Inter-assured of the mind.” Like the rumbling earth, th e dull sublunary (sublunary meaning literally beneath the moon and also subject to the moon) lovers are all physical, unable to experience separation without losing the sensation that comprises and sustains their love. But the spiritual lovers “Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss,” because, like the trepidation (vibration) of the spheres (the concentric globes that surrounded the earth in ancient astronomy), their love is not wholly physical.

consequences of an earthquake.

The speaker then declares that, since the lovers? two souls are one, his departure will simply expand the area of their unified soul, rather than cause a rift between them. If, however, their souls are “two” instead of “one”, they are as the feet of a drafter?s compass, connected, with the center foot fixing the orbit of the outer foot and helping it to describe a perfect circle. The compass (the instrument used for drawing circles) is one of Donne?s most famous metaphors, and it is the perfect image to encapsulate the values of Donne?s spiritual love, which is balanced, symmetrical, intellectual, serious, and beautiful in its polished simplicity.

Like many of Donne?s love poems (including “The Sun Rising” and “The Canonization”), “A Valediction: forbidding Mourning” creates a dichotomy between the common love of the everyday world and the uncommon love of the speaker. Here, the speaker claims that to tell “the laity,” or the common people, of his lo ve would be to profane its sacred nature, and he is clearly contemptuous of the dull sublunary love of other lovers. The effect of this dichotomy is to create a kind of emotional aristocracy that is similar in form to the political aristocracy with which Donne has had painfully bad luck throughout his life and which he commented upon in poems,

such as “The Canonization”: This emotional aristocracy is similar in form to the political one but utterly opposed to it in spirit. Few in number are the emotional aristocrats who have access to the spiritual love of the spheres and the compass; throughout all of Donne?s writing, the membership of this elite never includes more than the speaker and his lover—or at the most, the speaker, his lover, and the reader of the poem, who is called upon to sympathize with Donne?s romantic plight.

Holy Sonnets: Death, Be Not Proud

BY JOHN DONNE

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Counsel to Girls

by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Times is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day, To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, The higher he's a-getting

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spend, the worse, and worst Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry.

Virtue

George Herbert

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky;

The dew shall weep thy fall tonight,

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, shoes hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie;

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives.

To His Coy Mistress

BY ANDREW MARVELL

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges? side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity,

The grave's a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

An Essay on Criticism (215-232)--- About Learning

Alexander Pope的An Essay on Criticism (Excerpt: lines 215-232)，这首诗是讲艺术的，一知半解是一件危险的事情，浅尝辄止使我们沾沾自喜，一开始的时候都是被艺术璀璨的光芒所吸引，年少无知的我们立志要攀上艺术的高峰，然而初涉此地后我们就迷失了方向，看不到前面的路，开始困惑起来，若是坚持住继续前行，你会发现意想不到的风景。再后来，当你小有成就时，你会感到无比愉悦，但回望走过的路会使我们颤抖，前面的路更不好走，需要付出更多的艰辛和努力，而且前面山外有山永无止境。世事莫不如此啊。

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

一知半解危害不浅

彼埃利亚泉水如不痛饮就别只尝一点

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

浅酌只能使我们懵懂

痛饮才能让我们清醒

Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,

一下子就激发于缪斯所传

年少无畏的我们要翻越艺术的高山

While from the bounded level of our mind

Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;

然而我们的心灵受到束缚

短视的我们看不到下面的长度

But more advanced, behold with strange surprise

New distant scenes of endless science rise!

然而意想不到的惊喜摆在前面

So pleased at first the towering Alps we try, Mount over the vales, and seem to tread the sky, 如此愉悦首次如愿登上阿尔卑斯山

谷连着山，仿佛漫步在云间

The eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last; 不化的积雪已经越过

最初的云朵和山峦似乎才刚刚经过

But, those attained, we tremble to survey

The growing labors of the lengthened way;

俯瞰走过的路我们在颤抖

前面的路更加不好走

The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, Hills over hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

前面不绝的美景迷离了我们的双眼

山相连，阿尔卑斯漫无边

On His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day labor, light denied?"

I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest.

They also serve who only stand and wait. "

译注：

1.这是一首十四行诗，属彼得拉克体，韵式为ABBA，ABBA，CDE，CDE，仍是意大利式的前八行（octave）和后六行(sestet)两个部分组成。前八行描写诗人对失明的沮丧、悲观情绪，甚至怀疑上帝的不公待遇。(费了这么多行才转到正题：“质问上帝”，但，想到那是跟上帝说话，而且弥尔顿那么虔诚，他说话一定是小心的、委婉的。一个fondly就能充分说明他战战兢兢、谨慎谦卑的心情。) 后六行用对话的形式，描写内心争斗，并在这个过程中，让自己从郁闷的心情中解脱出来。自己与自己的斗争往往是一种最残酷形式的斗争，这种纠结往往会使人痛苦不堪。然而，从弥尔顿的诗行中，我们看到的是坦然，是面对，是希望。这种对生命的积极向上的态度体现了弥尔顿是多么伟大！失明并不是侍奉上帝的障碍，而是侍奉上帝的必然部分，只有耐心地接受这个事实，才能做出更大的成就，来感谢上帝的恩赐。人生固然有很多痛苦，具有大智大勇的人，在默默忍受命运折磨的时候，永远不会放弃希望和等待。华兹华斯称赞十四行诗在弥尔顿的笔下“变成了战斗号角，他从中吹出生机蓬勃的曲调”。

2.弥尔顿从1644年视力就开始下降，1652年因《为英国人民声辩》(A Defense of the English People)的写作过度劳累而导致双目失明，这时他才44岁。此诗是在1655年写成，当时弥尔顿47岁。实际上，他大名鼎鼎的12卷史诗《失乐园》也是在失明状态下写成的。弥尔顿在文学上的地位仅次于莎士

和soul的对比；days, dark及world, wide的头韵，等等。

4.诗歌涉及不少典故，比如，他不但几次提到上帝（Maker，God），而且还提到那时当货币使用的Talent。这个talent本意是才能、天赋，但在《圣经》里是这样的：《马太福音》第二十五章的故事，说主人要到远方去，把三位仆人叫来，按每人的才能派给银子去赚更多的钱。他用talent做单位，古时talent 是衡量金子、银子的重量单位。第一位仆人拿到五千talent银子，第二个拿到二千，第三个拿到一千。第一和第二个仆人都去做生意，只有第三个仆人，把一千talent银子埋在了地里。等主人回来算账时，第一个人赚了一倍，有一万，第二个人有四千，他却仍是一千。主人便发怒，夺过他的一千给了第一个仆人；并且把这个废物仆人丢在黑暗里，哀哭切齿。因此，“One talent”，“一千银子”，意思是说：“天赋最低的（才能）”、“庸才”。所以，后面的account 显然指代的是这三个人的账面所得的财富。而恰恰中文的“才”和“财”同音。

5.“mild yoke” 的典故也是出于《马太福音》第十一章：

6.诗歌用了大量跨行手法，使得全诗有一种近乎散文的婉转语调，读者一直读到最后一行，才感觉舒了一口气，因为最后一行是独立完整的诗行，直截了当，清晰得很。这种手法也使得全诗浑然一体，你不得不读下去，直到最后看到结论。

注释：

ere：（古）before

doth：（古）does

fondly：（古）credulously; foolishly; unwisely

yoke：（古）burden, workload

light is spent：双重意义，一是我的生命光阴，二是我视力给我带来的光明。

which is death to hide: to hide (talent) is death

useless：unused 未被使用过的

therewith：by that means, by that talent; with it

account: record of accomplishment; worth 参见译注第4条

exact: demand, require 要求

Patience: 拟人化的“耐心”，大写P，是拟人化的标志

mild yoke：不太重的劳动，yoke原意为辕，车辕，驾辕即指代劳作。参见译注第5条

at one?s bidding: 遵命于。。。；听。。。的差遣；按照。。。的意愿或命令办事

speed: 动词，to promote the success of (an affair, undertaking, etc.); further, forward, or expedite.使兴旺发达，使繁荣富强，促进；它与post并列，同是thousands的谓语。

post：travel 到处奔走

ON HIS DECEASED WIFE

John Milton

Me thought I saw my late espoused Saint

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave，

Whom Joves great Son to her glad Husband gave，Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint，Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint，Purification in the old Law did save，

And such，as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint，Came vested all in white，pure as her mind：

Her face was vail'd，yet to my fancied sight，Love，sweetness，goodness，in her person shin'd So clear，as in no face with more delight．

But O as to embrace me she enclin'd

I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night．

What though the field be lost?

虽战场失利又何足道哉？

All is not lost;th'unconquerable will,

我们并未彻底失败；那不屈的气概，

And study of revenge,immortal hate,

报复的急切，仇恨的难以消解，

And courage never to submit or yeild;

宁死不降，勇往不歇，

And what is else not to be overcome?

不可被征服还有别的什么可以匹敌？

That glory never shall his wrath or might

这份荣耀他休想凭狂怒或武力

Extort from me.To bow and sue for grace

来剥夺消灭。我对他的帝国不屑一顾，

With suppliant knee,and deify his power

要低头乞讨宽恕

卑躬屈膝，拜其强权为神甫，

Who,from the terror of this arm, so late

出于对这武力的恐惧，为时已晚，

*Doubted his empire——that were low indeed;

那我才真的是太低贱；

That were an ignominy and shame beneath

那会比这次坠落更卑鄙更丢脸；

This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of gods 既然，命中注定，天神的威力

And this empyreal substance,cannot fail;

和这空灵之物，不可与敌，

Since,through experience of this great event,

既然通过这场大事件洗礼，

In arms not worse,in foresight much advanced,