【爱尔兰】威廉.巴特勒.叶芝
2021年11月23日
旋转，再旋转。在旋转中拓展、上升
猎鹰已听不到驯鹰者的呼唤
万物分崩，中心难以维系
世界混乱不堪
如血色般幽暗的浪潮四溢
各处圣洁的礼仪被淹没
好人缺失信仰
坏人狂热至极
无疑，某些神谕即将显灵
无疑，二次圣临即将来临
二次圣临！此言还未来得及脱口
一来自神界的巨幅影像便干扰了我的视力：
沙漠某处，一狮身人头状的怪物
目光凝视，如太阳般空洞无情
它正缓慢地移动着，而在它的周围
全是盘旋在其上空的愤怒沙漠之鸟的阴影
黑暗再次降临。但现在我明白
二十个世纪石头般的沉睡
已被摇篮里的噩梦惊醒
它的时刻终于来临，什么样的粗野巨兽
正愚笨地挪向伯利恒，以求再生？
注：1.二次圣临，即基督再生，再次统治世界；2.gyre:为作者特有的审美意象，呈螺旋式上升（漩涡）；2.伯利恒(Bethlehem)，巴勒斯坦中南部城市，耶稣降生地，是犹太教和基督教圣地，建有耶稣诞生教堂
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?
