【愛爾蘭】威廉.巴特勒.葉芝
2021年11月23日
旋轉，再旋轉。在旋轉中拓展、上升
獵鷹已聽不到馴鷹者的呼喚
萬物分崩，中心難以維係
世界混亂不堪
如血色般幽暗的浪潮四溢
各處聖潔的禮儀被淹沒
好人缺失信仰
壞人狂熱至極
無疑，某些神諭即將顯靈
無疑，二次聖臨即將來臨
二次聖臨！此言還未來得及脫口
一來自神界的巨幅影像便幹擾了我的視力：
沙漠某處，一獅身人頭狀的怪物
目光凝視，如太陽般空洞無情
它正緩慢地移動著，而在它的周圍
全是盤旋在其上空的憤怒沙漠之鳥的陰影
黑暗再次降臨。但現在我明白
二十個世紀石頭般的沉睡
已被搖籃裏的噩夢驚醒
它的時刻終於來臨，什麽樣的粗野巨獸
正愚笨地挪向伯利恒，以求再生？
注：1.二次聖臨，即基督再生，再次統治世界；2.gyre:為作者特有的審美意象，呈螺旋式上升（漩渦）；2.伯利恒(Bethlehem)，巴勒斯坦中南部城市，耶穌降生地，是猶太教和基督教聖地，建有耶穌誕生教堂
原文
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
