Poems from China

【七律】

心绪翻腾唇舌缄
海涛挥泪泣青岩
渔家儿女玩声闹
舱中渔夫歌鼓帆

舟过山崖天弇去
手不再见语犹喃
波涛涯脚诉情谊
美好时光不复衔



The original translation can be found at here

Original Poem by Alfred Tennyson, English Poet, 1809~1892

Break, Break, Break,

On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.


O well for the fisherman's boy

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O well for the sailor lad

That he sings in boat on the bay!


And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill.

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still !


Break, Break, Break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea !

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.


注：奥夫睿德－腾尼生（Alfred Tennyson,1809~1892）英国诗人。

The poet grieves the loss of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, a promising poet and essayist who had been engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emily. Hallam died of a stroke in 1833 when he was only 22. Nature, of course, does not stop to mourn the loss of anyone. Cold and indifferent, it carries on, the waves of the ocean breaking against rocks along the seashore without pausing even for a moment. The rest of the world carries on as well: the fisherman's boy happily playing with his sister, the sailor merrily singing, the ship busily plying the waters of commerce. Downcast, isolated by his grief, the poet yearns to touch the hand of his friend once more, to hear the sound of his voice. But, no, Hallam is gone forever; his "tender grace" will never again return.