【葡萄牙十四行诗集】（英）勃朗宁.pdfVIP

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE by Browning 1 SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE I I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own life, who by turns had flung A shadow across me. Straightway I was ware, So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, - Guess now who holds thee! - Death, I said, But, there, The silver answer rang, Not death, but Love. II But only three in all Gods universe Have heard this word thou hast said,--himself, beside Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse So darkly on my eyelids, so as to amerce My sight from seeing thee,--that if I had died, The death- weights, placed there, would have signified Less absolute exclusion. Nay is worse From God than from all others, O my friend! Men could not part us with their worldly jars, Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend; Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars: And, heaven being rolled between us at the end, We should but vow the faster for the stars. III Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies. O