每天讀一點英文:那些年那些詩 30 寫在教堂墓地的挽歌

Elegy
----Written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.


Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds1;


Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower

The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such, as wandering near her secret bower,

Molest her ancient solitary reign.


Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude2 forefathers of the hamlet sleep.


The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn3,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.


For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care;

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.


Oft4 did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke5;

How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!


Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the poor.


The boast of heraldry6, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
 

注釋：
1 羊欄。這里指關(guān)進羊欄的羊群。

2 untaught，沒有受過教育的。

3 hunter's horn，獵人的號角。

4 = often

5 stubborn glebe: solid land 堅硬的泥土。broke = broken

6 noble birth，高貴的出身。