『小记：几天前，网友林贝卡来到我的“部落阁”坐客，留下了一首我喜欢的歌《那时候》的链接，并送上耶鲁毕业颂诗《机缘之间》的英文节选与我分享；又一天，紫君网友贴了电影《喜福会》片段，使我的那篇《A Pair of Tickets》的故事梗概显得有的放矢。我现在把《机缘之间》英文原诗全文抄录于此，借花献佛，谢谢林贝卡， 谢谢紫君。也希望美语世界的网友们喜欢。– 仲夏百合』
The Ivy Ode: 《Between the Chances》
Written by David Griswold (Yale Class 2007)
The gate swings open, and minutes pass,
Someone cracks a joke – the last
Heard as a student.
Four years ago, this stage was far.
Now could we get there from where we are –
Well, who wouldn’t?
Bustling like bees, rallied into ranks,
Arranged like sinners giving thanks,
The time arrives,
And down the well-worn rows we march
To shake the hands, and disembark
Into our real lives.
The books we perused are snug in bed,
What angels watched us overhead
Extend their contracts,
While parents bend a wave of grief
Beneath a feeling of relief –
They can relax.
As we, in gothic, graying towers,
Gilded libraries, where we spent hours
Rehearsing facts,
Have borrowed knowledge of a kind
The ready heart can only find
When it reacts
To difference, and to love’s full
Enchantment. Too often, thoughts are dull
Or un-ignited
Without their better counterpart:
The art of making, made an art
Itself, unrequited
Until it is given back.
We are our books, barely a crack
Along the seams –
Their wisdom here, freshly imparted,
Is thrown to depths perpetually charted
Beyond the sun’s beams.
It falls to us, now graduated
To share the worlds we’ve contemplated,
To brandish hope;
To shield the war-sick, weary masses,
And separate the volatile gases
Before they elope.
It falls to us to be the strong,
To mark all those who worship wrong
Yet tempting causes,
To marshal out our erudition
Yet always keen to our position,
And our many flaws.
This task we have, these hearts to mend,
They are the same our fathers lend
From age to age:
The desperate manors, plush and futile,
The forges of the bored and brutal
Company wage.
Let us not marry our intent
To keep up the establishment
Of vain pursuits.
Remember what has meant the most,
Give others a chance, and do not boast,
Be kind in disputes.
And always, always, love with true
And fervent love. None may undo
What has been done.
A summer’s night cannot be made
Again – none uncode time’s blockade.
There is only one.
So did you gather all you wanted?
From classes, friends, professors vaunted
Above the gods?
The captive seeds that in us churn
Now to the earth must be returned –
Are there more words
You wish you had distributed?
Or times that, uninhibited,
You would have changed?
Collect them all, savor the lost
Chances, the freedoms that were glossed
Over, estranged
Embraces – pack them up for good,
And do not do what others would
Tell you is best.
Follow the distant drum that speaks
Of light and truth, and life that seeks
A surer rest.
The clocks are whirring with a fury,
The streets are lined with those who hurry
With heads averted.
The classroom doors to us now close,
Our busy hands are in repose,
Though disconcerted.
The hidden walkways known to us
Now open to those curious
Enough to look.
They pass along a legacy,
Our prints of anonymity
In every nook.
The stories of our hands explain
A common bond that must remain,
Though we are gone –
We are the grass, we are the rooms,
The silent marching that resumes
Its slow, proud song.
