结不成的婚

【美】唐纳德·霍尔      陈子弘 译

新娘失踪了。二十分钟的找寻后
我们在地下室找到，她身着白婚纱
有点苍白无力，躲在柱头后啦。
我们带她回到圣餐台时，我们发现新郎
歪戴帽子，衬衫敞开，胡子也没打理
目中无人与年轻健壮的教堂司事要去钟楼
要说这是同道情谊我们很难分辨。
啊，在所有这些强制民主和自由思想
加尔文主义的会议室和私校里
这些诗人决不会结婚！——哦，苍白、热情
阿默斯特来的主礼人！哦，布鲁克林沉默的宇宙！

原文：

The Impossible Marriage

The bride disappears. After twenty minutes of searching
we discover her in the cellar, vanishing against a pillar
in her white gown and her skin’s original pallor.
When we guide her back to the altar, we find the groom
in his slouch hat, open shirt, and untended beard
withdrawn to the belltower with the healthy young sexton
from whose comradeship we detach him with difficulty.
O never in all the meetinghouses and academies
of compulsory Democracy and free-thinking Calvinism
will these poets marry!—O pale, passionate
anchoret of Amherst! O reticent kosmos of Brooklyn!

                                                    Donald Hall