I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root.

我知道底部，她说。我用巨大的主根探知：

It is what you fear.

这正是你所畏惧的。

I do not fear it: I have been there.

但我并不怕：我曾到过那里。

Is it the sea you hear in me,

你从我身上听到的可是海声，

Its dissatisfactions?

它的不满？

Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

或者是空无的声音，那是你的疯狂？

Love is a shadow.

爱是一抹阴影。

How you lie and cry after it.

你在它的背后躺卧呼喊。

Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

听：这是蹄音：它远离了，像一匹马。

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

整个晚上我将如是奔驰，狂烈地，

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,

直把你的头跑成石块，你的枕成一方小小的赛马场，

Echoing, echoing.

回响，回响。

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?

或者要我带给你毒药的响声？

This is rain now, this big hush.

下雨了，这硕大的寂静。

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

而这是它的果实：锡白，如砷。

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.

我饱尝落日的暴行。

Scorched to the root

焦灼直达根部

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

我红色的灯丝烧断而仍坚持着，一团铁丝。

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.

现在我分解成碎片，棍棒般四处飞散。

A wind of such violence

如此猛烈的狂风

Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

绝不能忍受他人的旁观；我得嘶喊。

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me

月亮也同样的无情：总是残酷地

Cruelly, being barren.

拖曳着我，我已不能生育。

Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

她的强光刺伤了我。或许是我绊住了她。

I let her go. I let her go

我放她走。我放她走。

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.

萎缩而扁平，像经历了剧烈的手术。

How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

你的恶梦如是地攫取占有我。

I am inhabited by a cry.

哭喊在我身上定居。

Nightly it flaps out

每晚鼓翼而出

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

用它的钓钩，去寻找值得爱的事物。

I am terrified by this dark thing

我被这黑暗的东西吓坏了

That sleeps in me;

它就躺在我的体内。

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

我整天都能感觉到它轻柔如羽的翻动，它的憎恶。

Clouds pass and disperse.

云朵飘散而过。

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?

那些是爱的面庞吗，那些苍白、不可复得的？

Is it for such I agitate my heart?

我就是因为这些而乱了心绪吗？

I am incapable of more knowledge.

我无法进一步知晓。

What is this, this face

这是什么，这张脸

So murderous in its strangle of branches?—

如是凶残地扼杀枝干？──

Its snaky acids kiss.

它蛇阴的酸液嘶嘶作响。

It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults

麻木了意志。这些是隔离，徐缓的过失

That kill, that kill, that kill.

足可置人于死，死，死。