One Foot in Eden

Edwin Muir

One foot in Eden still, I stand

And look across the other land.

The world’s great day is growing late,

Yet strange these fields that we have planted

So long with crops of love and hate.

Time’s handiworks by time are haunted,

And nothing now can separate

The corn and tares compactly grown.

The armorial weed in stillness bound

About the stalk; these are our own.

Evil and good stand thick around

In the fields of charity and sin

Where we shall lead our harvest in.

Yet still from Eden springs the root

As clean as on the starting day.

Time takes the foliage and the fruit

And burns the archetypal leaf

To shapes of terror and of grief

Scattered along the winter way.

But famished field and blackened tree

Bear flowers in Eden never known.

Blossoms of grief and charity

Bloom in these darkened fields alone.

What had Eden ever to say

Of hope and faith and pity and love

Until was buried all its day

And memory found its treasure trove?

Strange blessings never in Paradise

Fall from these beclouded skies.

一腳剛剛跨出伊甸樂園

愛德溫?繆爾

一腳剛剛跨出伊甸樂園，

我便站住往外觀看。

世界的輝光已近黃昏，

這片土地變得十分怪誕，

在那里我們一直耕耘仇恨、愛戀。

時間的杰作自有時間摧殘，

莠草、禾苗相生相伴，

天賜的搭配誰能拆散?

我們的世界就是這樣，

酷似稗草緊隨秸稈;

在這仁慈與罪過的田野，

善惡交結難以分辨，

我們獲取收成年復一年。

然而，它的根卻長在伊甸，

從開始的那天便一目了然，

四季帶來莊稼收成，

然后又燒焦所有的葉片，

把它們變成恐怖與悲傷的形狀，

沿途把冬日的道路撒滿。

饑餓的土地與焦黑的樹木卻開出花朵，

即使伊甸園中也從未看見。

這悲傷與仁慈的花朵啊，

只在焦黑的田野爭奇斗艷!

直到它的輝光消失，

直到它的寶藏被記憶發現，

對于希望、信仰、憐憫、愛戀，

伊甸園怎能不啞口無言?

神奇的福佑從不光臨天堂，

卻從烏云密布的空中降落人間。