LESSON 136

_{A COMMON THOUGHT}

共同的想法

Henry Timrod, 1829-1867, was born at Charleston, South Carolina. He inherited his father’s literary taste and ability, and had the advantages of a liberal education. He entered the University of Georgia before he was seventeen years of age, and while there commenced his career as a poet. Poverty and ill health compelled him to leave the university without taking a degree; he then commenced the study of law, and for ten years taught in various private families. At the outbreak of the war, in 1860, he warmly espoused the Southern cause, and wrote many stirring war lyrics. In 1863 he joined the Army of the West, as correspondent of the Charleston “Mercury,” and in 1864 he became editor of the “South Carolinian,” published first at Columbia and later at Charleston. He also served for a time as assistant secretary to Governor Orr. The advance of Sherman’s army reduced him to poverty, and he was compelled to the greatest drudgery in order to earn a bare living. His health soon broke down, and he died of hemorrhage of the lungs. The following little poem seems, almost, to have been written under a presentiment, so accurately does it describe the closing incidents of the poet’s life.

The first volume of Timrod’s poems appeared in 1860. A later edition, with a memoir of the author, was published in New York in 1873.

Somewhere on this earthly planet

In the dust of flowers that be,

In the dewdrop, in the sunshine,

Sleeps a solemn day for me.

At this wakeful hour of midnight

I behold it dawn in mist,

And I hear a sound of sobbing

Through the darkness,—Hist! oh, hist!

In a dim and musky chamber,

I am breathing life away;

Some one draws a curtain softly,

And I watch the broadening day.

As it purples in the zenith,

As it brightens on the lawn,

There’s a hush of death about me,

And a whisper, “He is gone!”

【中文阅读】

这个世俗星球的某处

在鲜花枯萎后的尘埃中，

在露珠中，在阳光下，

这庄重的一天是为了睡梦中的我。

午夜苏醒的时刻，

我见它在薄雾中现影，

我听到一声啜泣

划过漫漫夜色——嘘！啊，嘘！

在灰暗和麝香味弥漫的房间里，

我的生命渐渐远去；

有人轻轻拉了一下窗帘，

我看到天光一片。

天际一袭紫色，

照亮草地的鲜绿，

死神在我身旁安静下来，

一声低语，“他走了！”