不列颠之味 Taste of Britain

Do Not Call Me, Father.

Russian poem from 1942

(Son to Father…)
Do not call me, father. Do not seek me.
Do not call me. Do not wish me back.
We’re on a route unchartered, fire and blood erase our track.
On we fly on wings of thunder, never more to sheathe our swords.
All of us in battle fallen – not to be brought back by words.

Will there be a rendezvous? I know not. I only know we still must fight.
We are sand grains in infinity, never to meet, nevermore see light.

(Father to son…)
Farewell then my son. Farewell then my conscience.
Farewell my youth, my solace, my one and my only.

Let this farewell be the end of the story,
A solitude vast in which none is more lonely,
In which you remained barred forever and ever
From light, from air, with your death pains untold.
Untold and unsoothed, never to be resurrected.
Forever and ever an 18 year old.

Farewell then.
No trains ever come from those regions,
Unscheduled or scheduled.
No aeroplanes fly there.

Farewell then my son,
For no miracles happen, as in this world
Dreams do not come true.

Farewell.
I will dream of you still as a baby,
Treading the earth with little strong toes,
The earth where already so many lie buried.

This song to my son, then, is come to its close.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."     ---US Declaration of Independence 

Weight

BY JACQUELINE WOODSON

When I was a kid, there was this song that played on the radio all the time. It talked about a road that was long and a brother who had to be carried on it. The singer said the brother wasn’t heavy. That he was, simply, his brother. And that line repeated again and again—He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother. And something about the way the singer’s voice hugged these words, proclaimed them to the world, caught in the back of my throat. Making it hard to move. To swallow. I didn’t know then—at nine, ten, eleven—that this was love. That this was community. That this was about a greater good. If the road is long, it doesn’t matter what you weigh—I will carry you.

As a child, I loved the stories inside of songs. And the poetry. I loved how the music existed as air and water around the words—an energy to help them move deeper and more beautifully into our minds—and from there, our memories.

The road has been long. As I sit down to write this, I am so grateful for each of you on it with me. As I read through the selections in this journal, I am carried back to that place in my childhood—where words stopped me, made me have to remember how to swallow, said Don’t forget to breathe.

And now—here we all are—at this moment, past the many we’ve lost who weren’t able to breathe into this new day. Past the beginnings of a revolution that is now a movement we have chosen to walk beside, to raise our fists up into. Past a country that feels like it’s losing its mind. Past a moment before we had to remember to grab our masks when we grabbed our wallets and keys. And still—ahead of us, the road keeps winding into a place we cannot yet see.

So on we go.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

本期我们欣赏的这首诗相信大家都不陌生，它同时也是西方最脍炙人口的诗作之一，由美国国宝级诗人Robert Frost在1961年写下：The Road Not Taken/未选择的路（中译）。这首诗是Frost最广为人知的作品，同样也是被误读最严重的作品，究竟是怎么回事，一起来听听看吧～

The Road Not Taken 
BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

本期我们欣赏的这首短诗出自拜伦的长篇抒情诗《公子哈尔德游记》。这部长诗和拜伦的另一部作品《唐璜》可以说是拜伦留下的最经典的两部巨作了。

就此，我们的文豪仰望系列之拜伦到这期就结束了。ShinJam又要开始绞尽脑汁想下一个专题来说哪位了，当然如果你有感兴趣的诗人欢迎在评论区为ta打call！

     Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

     George Gordon Byron（1788-1824）

   There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

   There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

   There is society where none intrudes,

   By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

   I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

   From these our interviews, in which I steal

   From all I may be, or have been before,

   To mingle with the Universe, and feel

   What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

在每位文豪专题结束的时候，ShinJam会像这样奉上彩蛋视频，将该作家的一些金句（quotes）整理成MV的形式来让大家和他告别。因为分给每位作家的剧集有限，导致许多优秀的作品没办法拿出来分享，这其中的一些便放进视频里了，希望也能令大家在观看时更有新鲜感。

死亡一直都是哲学，宗教，文学自古以来喜欢探讨并且总也避不开的话题。通过一个人对死亡的看法，基本上能了解到他大致的人生观。这首诗就是一个了解莎翁生死观的nice chance。令人没想到的是，在死亡这件事上，莎士比亚竟然和庄子的想法如此相似。

Song: “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun” 

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(from Cymbeline)

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, 

Nor the furious winter’s rages; 

Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: 

Golden lads and girls all must, 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown o’ the great; 

Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke; 

Care no more to clothe and eat; 

To thee the reed is as the oak: 

The scepter, learning, physic, must 

All follow this, and come to dust. 

Fear no more the lightning flash, 

Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone; 

Fear not slander, censure rash; 

Thou hast finished joy and moan: 

All lovers young, all lovers must 

Consign to thee, and come to dust. 

No exorciser harm thee! 

Nor no witchcraft charm thee! 

Ghost unlaid forbear thee! 

Nothing ill come near thee! 

Quiet consummation have; 

And renownèd be thy grave!

Funeral Blues

BY W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from bang with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My wong week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.