Time that is moved by little fidget wheels

靠旋转不停的小齿轮运动的时间

Is not my time, the flood that does not flow.

不是我的时间，那停滞的波流。

Between the double and the single bell

在轮船叮叮当当报时的

Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells

钟声之间，在游弋于下面的

From the dark warship riding there below,

昏暗战舰上的一阵钟声之间，

I have lived many lives, and this one life

我几经生死之变，重温了久故的

Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells.

乔的一生，他活在五次钟声之间。

Deep and dissolving verticals of light

深邃空蒙垂直的光线

Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells

摆渡下明月的落瀑。五次钟声

Coldly rung out in a machine's voice. Night and water

冷冷荡出机械的音。夜色与水波

Pour to one rip of darkness, the Harbour floats

涌向黑暗的湍流，港口漂在

In the air, the Cross hangs upside-down in water.

空中，十字星座倒悬水中。

Why do I think of you, dead man, why thieve

亡灵啊，我为什么想起你，为什么

These profitless lodgings from the flukes of thought

拖起抛泊在时间中的思绪的锚链

Anchored in Time? You have gone from earth,

从中偷取无谓的回忆？你

Gone even from the meaning of a name;

弃世而去，你的姓名失去意义；

Yet something's there, yet something forms its lips

但仍有什么东西，它张口

And hits and cries against the ports of space,

对着空间的港口冲击、碰撞、哭诉，

Beating their sides to make its fury heard.

向世人宣告它的愤怒。

Are you shouting at me, dead man, squeezing your face

你把脸贴在无言的玻璃窗上

In agonies of speech on speechless panes?

痛苦地说话，是喊我吗，阴魂？

Cry louder, beat the windows, bawl your name!

大声点，敲窗户，喊出你的名字！

But I hear nothing, nothing...only bells,

但我什么都听不见，只听到钟声

Five bells, the bumpkin calculus of Time.

五次钟声，愚人的计时法。

Your echoes die, your voice is dowsed by Life,

你的声音消逝，它被生活淹没，

There's not a mouth can fly the pygmy strait -

狭窄的生死线谁的声音都无法飞越——

Nothing except the memory of some bones

唯有对久已零落成泥土的

Long shoved away, and sucked away, in mud;

尸骨的记忆；对你可能做过，

And unimportant things you might have done,

或者我以为你曾做过的

Or once I thought you did; but you forgot,

一些小事的记忆，这些你忘了，

And all have now forgotten - looks and words

谁能记得呢——那过去的言谈举止

And slops of beer; your coat with buttons off,

啤酒渍，你面色憔悴，眼睛受伤，

Your gaunt chin and pricked eye, and raging tales

穿着掉了扣子的上衣，大讲

Of Irish kings and English perfidy,

爱尔兰王，讲英国人的背信弃义，

And dirtier perfidy of publicans

说达灵赫斯特的店老板更糟，

Groaning to God from Darlinghurst.

竟然大逆不道，埋怨上帝。

Five bells.

　　　　　　　　　　五次钟声。

Then I saw the road, I heard the thunder

于是我仿佛看见我们摸黑

Tumble, and felt the talons of the rain

来摩尔岸之夜走过的路，听到

The night we came to Moorebank in slab-dark,

那滚滚雷声，受到暴雨利爪的袭击。

So dark you bore no body, had no face,

夜色深沉，不见你身影面容，

But a sheer voice that rattled out of air

只听空中传来断续的声音

(As now you'd cry if I could break the glass),

（有如你此刻喊我打碎破璃的声音），

A voice that spoke beside me in the bush,

这声音来自我身边的树丛，

Loud for a breath or bitten off by wind,

声很小，不时被风声盖住，

Of Milton, melons, and the Rights of Man,

讲弥尔顿，讲西瓜，讲《人权》，

And blowing flutes, and how Tahitian girls

讲吹笛子，说塔希提女郎

Are brown and angry-tongued, and Sydney girls

皮肤黑嘴厉害，悉尼女郎

Are white and angry-tongued, or so you'd found.

皮肤白嘴也厉害，这是你的看法。

But all I heard was words that didn't join

但我只听到断续的词句，于是

So Milton became melons, melons girls,

弥尔顿变为西瓜，西瓜变为女郎，

And fifty mouths, it seemed, were out that night,

好象那晚有五十张嘴讲话，

And in each tree an Ear was bending down,

每棵树上都有人侧耳偷听，

Or something that had just run, gone behind the grass,

又象什么东西刚刚跑进树丛，

When blank and bone-white, like a maniac's thought,

这时惨白溟蒙的闪电，如狂人的

The naphtha-flash of lightning slit the sky,

怪念，如石精油的火光，划破长空

Knifing the dark with deathly photographs.

以骇人的影相刺裂黑暗。

There's not so many with so poor a purse

不论生活怎样贫苦艰难，

Or fierce a need, must fare by night like that,

谁愿深夜里在五里外

Five miles in darkness on a country track,

黑暗的乡道上这样赶路，

But when you do, that's what you think.

但你既如此，就自有你的道理。

Five bells.

　　　　　　　　　　五次钟声。

In Melbourne, your appetite had gone,

在墨尔本，你掉了胃口，

Your angers too; they had been leeched away

也失了愤怒，胃口和愤怒

By the soft archery of summer rains

被软箭似夏雨和海绵似的潮气

And the sponge-paws of wetness, the slow damp

啮噬，缓缓浸渐的潮气

That stuck the leaves of living, snailed the mind,

使生命的茂叶枯萎，令头脑迟钝，

And showed your bones, that had been sharp with rage,

让你那充盈过愤怒的皮骨外露，

The sodden ectasies of rectitude.

这就是正直换得的潮湿的喜悦。

I thought of what you'd written in faint ink,

我想起你用淡墨写下的话，

Your journal with the sawn-off lock, that stayed behind

想起你的遗物中那本锯掉锁的

With other things you left, all without use,

日记本，如今这些都毫无用处，

All without meaning now, except a sign

失去了意义，只表明

That someone had been living who now was dead:

某人曾活着，而今他死了；

"At Labassa. Room 6 x 8

「在拉巴萨。６×８英尺的房间；

On top of the tower; because of this, very dark

因为在塔顶上，冬天屋里

And cold in winter. Everything has been stowed

阴冷幽暗。这里堆满各类

Into this room - 500 books all shapes

杂物——颜色大小各不相同的

And colours, dealt across the floor

五百本书，乱扔在地板上

And over sills and on the laps of chairs;

窗台上和椅子扶手上；

Guns, photoes of many differant things

还有枪和各种各样的相片

And differant curioes that I obtained..."

有我弄来的各类奇珍古完……」

In Sydney, by the spent aquarium-flare

我们在悉尼，借着廉价气灯

Of penny gaslight on pink wallpaper,

投在粉色壁纸上将灭的微光，

We argued about blowing up the world,

讨论怎样才能炸毁地球，

But you were living backward, so each night

可你却倒活，因此每夜

You crept a moment closer to the breast,

你都朝母亲的怀抱爬近一刻，

And they were living, all of them, those frames

他们依然活着，都还活着——

And shapes of flesh that had perplexed your youth,

那些困惑过你青春时代的

And most your father, the old man gone blind,

肉体的框架和形状，

With fingers always round a fiddle's neck,

尤其是你的父亲，那位手里

That graveyard mason whose fair monuments

总是拿着提琴的失明老人，

And tablets cut with dreams of piety

那墓地的石匠。他用虔诚的梦

Rest on the bosoms of a thousand men

刻出富丽华美的灵位碑石，

Staked bone by bone, in quiet astonishment

压在芸芸众生的胸膛上。他们

At cargoes they had never thought to bear,

尸骨相接，无言地愕然面对

These funeral-cakes of sweet and sculptured stone.

人未料到要承担的重负——

那些用美丽的雕石做成的祭饼。

Where have you gone? The tide is over you,

The turn of midnight water's over you,

你在何方？潮水将你淹没，

As Time is over you, and mystery,

夜半海水的涡流将你淹没，

And memory, the flood that does not flow.

就像时间，像神秘，像记忆

You have no suburb, like those easier dead

将你淹没，那停滞的流波。

In private berths of dissolution laid -

你无处栖身，而死于安乐者

The tide goes over, the waves ride over you

却躺进各自的死亡走廊——

And let their shadows down like shining hair,

潮水涌过，波涛从你身上压过

But they are Water; and the sea-pinks bend

投下波影像投下闪亮的云发，

Like lilies in your teeth, but they are Weed;

但它们是水；海石花像百荷

And you are only part of an Idea.

在你口中飘摇，但它们是草；

I felt the wet push its black thumb-balls in,

而你也只是一个不完整的概念。

The night you died, I felt your eardrums crack,

And the short agony, the longer dream,

你死之夜，我感到海水

The Nothing that was neither long nor short;

攥紧黑色手指，感到你耳膜震裂，

But I was bound, and could not go that way,

继而是短暂的痛苦，长久的梦境，

But I was blind, and could not feel your hand.

不短也不长的虚无；但我

If I could find an answer, could only find

身系此世，不能随你而去，

Your meaning, or could say why you were here

我红尘翳目，不能与你携手。

Who now are gone, what purpose gave you breath

如果我能找到答案，能找到

Or seized it back, might I not hear your voice?

你的价值，能够说你为何生过

又死去；是什么给你生命又将它

I looked out my window in the dark

索回，那么我能听到你的声音吗？

At waves with diamond quills and combs of light

That arched their mackerel-backs and smacked the sand

黑暗中我从窗口望大海波涛

In the moon's drench, that straight enormous glaze,

见钻石般细浪和粼粼碧波

And ships far off asleep, and Harbour-buoys

拱起鲐鱼形波峰舔舐月色

Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each,

溶溶的沙滩，洒满浩渺垂直的光；

And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard

见远处船只沉睡，港口航标灯

Was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal

无精打彩地闪闪呼应，

Of seabirds' voices far away, and bells,

我想听到你的声音，却只听见

Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.

一声汽笛，听见远方海鸟

Five bells.

刺裂长空的尖鸣，听见钟声

五次钟声。冷冷荡出的五次钟声。

　　　　　　　　　　五次钟声。