Bad dreams* Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Robert John Browning 1858

Last night I saw you in my sleep:
And how your charm of face was changed!
I asked “Some love, some faith you keep?”
You answered “Faith gone, love estranged.”

Whereat I woke–a twofold bliss:
Waking was one, but next there came
This other: “Though I felt, for this,
My heart break, I loved on the same.”

陈耀国译  Trans. YK Chan:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 惡夢                              () 罗伯特.博朗寧

 

昨夜我夢見你:

怎得你迷人的花容已變了!

我问你尚保留我的爱心, 我的信念矣?”

你答信念已过往,愛心已迷離了。

 

我就此夢醒—-获得双重快慰:

一来是清醒,二来                                                              

却是:”雖然因此我為

难堪伤心,我忠爱如昔哉。

______________________________________

This is the shortest poem of the Bad Dreams series of four that Browning wrote.  It appears in Asolando: Fancies and Facts (1889).

My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the man;
And I wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

陈耀国译  Trans. YK Chan:

我心雀跃                (英) 威廉.韋兹活斯

天显彩虹

心雀跃。

自从脫胎

到成人,

甚及衰老

違寕死!

孩童父及渠好汉;

馀日皆

悌大自然。

Parting At Morning by Robert Browning (1812-1889)

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain’s rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

Tr. YK Chan 陳耀國譯:

早別         (英) 罗伯特.博朗

轉角突達海
日望山端來
金徑彼直通
眾世我需貢

NOTE: “Parting At Morning” and its companion piece Meeting At Night” were published together simply as “Night and Morning”.  For those who wish to translate Meeting At Night”, here it is:

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,

Then the two hearts beating each to each!