Australia 澳大利亚篇
Australia
A. D. Hope (A. D. 霍普)
A Nation of trees， drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modem wars，
Darkens her hills， those endless， outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
They call her a young country， but they lie：
She is the last of lands， the emptiest，
A woman beyond her change of life， a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
Without songs， architecture， history：
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands，
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands，
The river of her immense stupidity
Floods her monotonous tribes from Ca1rns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not： ‘we live’ but ‘we survive’，
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
And her five cities， like five teeming sores，
Each drains her： a vast parasite robber-state
Where second-hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.
Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought， to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind，
Hoping， if still from the deserts the prophets come，
Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste， some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt， the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.
澳大利亚
译者 / 马祖毅
一个森林的国土，绿得单调，灰得凄凉，
像身穿一套现代野战军的服装
使她的群山黯然失色，而那连绵不断的峰峦
好似残破的司芬克斯石狮的脚爪伸向穹苍。
人们称她为年轻国家，全是谎言。
她乃是最后的一块大陆，杳无人烟，
犹如更年期已过的妇女，那乳房
虽然柔软，体内却干瘪得大不如前。
没有歌，没有建筑，也无历史可追寻，
也就是缺乏年轻国家的信仰和感情。
她的河流一条条消失于内陆的沙漠，
那非常愚蠢的河流却泛滥无垠，
从凯恩斯到珀斯淹没了单调的种族。
然而最后的人们终于来到了这大陆，
他们引为自豪的并非“生活”而是“生存”，
就在这垂死的土地上让子孙延续。
她的五大城市宛如五个鼓鼓的脓疮
把这辽阔、寄生的强盗国家弄得元气大伤；
次等的欧洲人移居到她的沿海地区，
畏畏缩缩地繁衍生息在异域殊方。
然而也有一些像我这样的人们
情愿离开现代思想的莽莽丛林，
去寻找人类思想的沙漠荒原，
希望在沙漠里有一些先知复生。
这一来罪恶渊薮的蛮荒就会突然地产生
绿水青山所不能孕育的某种精神，
它能避免学者的怀疑和有教养的人猿的唠叨，
这饶舌据说在那儿就叫做文明。
