Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.[4]
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!-yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. -A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. -One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
我们恰似荫蔽午夜明月的朵朵浮云,
发光、颤动、疾驰,何等活跃,
给黑暗划出明亮的条纹,然而转瞬,
夜幕收起,也就从此影失形消。
又似被忘却的琴,参差不齐的弦索
给多变的振动以多变的响应,
在这脆弱的乐器上,任何两次弹拨,
都奏不出同一种情致和声韵。
我们入睡,一个梦就足以毒害安息,
我们起身,一念遐思又会败坏一天;
感觉、构想、推理、欢笑或是悲啼,
抱紧心爱的灾难,摒弃恼人的忧烦:
全都一样!因为不论是喜、是恼,
离去的衢道,永远开敞;
人世间的明日绝不会雷同于今朝,
万古不变的,独有无常。