我猜《Ornithology in a World of Flux》裏那隻不知名的鳥大概是畫眉吧。
《Come in》by
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Too dark in the woods for a bird
The last of the light of the sun
Far in the pillared dark
But no, I was out for stars;
《The Darkling Thrush》 by Thomas Hardy （托馬斯·哈代）
I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to me
The Century's corpse outleant,
Its crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead,
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited.
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
With blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.
從上兩首詩可見英美詩人常以鳥自比，而鳥的鳴叫似常常意味著死亡，如詩人的絕唱。所以，當鳥叫出現在一首詩的時候，要當心了，此時的詩人估計差步多了，此時的詩則是詩人臨了流連的“啾~”“啾~”兩聲。
越看這兩首詩的原文，越覺得中文翻譯不可看，還是固執地覺得詩不可譯，一譯就有被掏鳥窩的感覺，如立所說，“鳥兒在詩歌中的性隱喻問題。我們都感到這是一個相當嚴重的問題”，哈哈。
