One Foot in Eden

Edwin Muir

One foot in Eden still, I stand

And look across the other land.

The world’s great day is growing late,

Yet strange these fields that we have planted

So long with crops of love and hate.

Time’s handiworks by time are haunted,

And nothing now can separate

The corn and tares compactly grown.

The armorial weed in stillness bound

About the stalk; these are our own.

Evil and good stand thick around

In the fields of charity and sin

Where we shall lead our harvest in.

Yet still from Eden springs the root

As clean as on the starting day.

Time takes the foliage and the fruit

And burns the archetypal leaf

To shapes of terror and of grief

Scattered along the winter way.

But famished field and blackened tree

Bear flowers in Eden never known.

Blossoms of grief and charity

Bloom in these darkened fields alone.

What had Eden ever to say

Of hope and faith and pity and love

Until was buried all its day

And memory found its treasure trove?

Strange blessings never in Paradise

Fall from these beclouded skies.

一脚刚刚跨出伊甸乐园

爱德温・缪尔

一脚刚刚跨出伊甸乐园，

我便站住往外观看。

世界的辉光已近黄昏，

这片土地变得十分怪诞，

在那里我们一直耕耘仇恨、爱恋。

时间的杰作自有时间摧残，

莠草、禾苗相生相伴，

天赐的搭配谁能拆散?

我们的世界就是这样，

酷似稗草紧随秸秆;

在这仁慈与罪过的田野，

善恶交结难以分辨，

我们获取收成年复一年。

然而，它的根却长在伊甸，

从开始的那天便一目了然，

四季带来庄稼收成，

然后又烧焦所有的叶片，

把它们变成恐怖与悲伤的形状，

沿途把冬日的道路撒满。

饥饿的土地与焦黑的树木却开出花朵，

即使伊甸园中也从未看见。

这悲伤与仁慈的花朵啊，

只在焦黑的田野争奇斗艳!

直到它的辉光消失，

直到它的宝藏被记忆发现，

对于希望、信仰、怜悯、爱恋，

伊甸园怎能不哑口无言?

神奇的福佑从不光临天堂，

却从乌云密布的空中降落人间。