MY JACT'S 烹 飪 課

   兒子這學期修了一門英詩寫作課.看他坐在電腦前苦思,問他在寫什麼?他說老師指定要做一首有若電影鏡頭移動的敘事詩.我想起大學時代讀過的"古舟子之歌"(The Rime of the Ancient Mariner),興沖沖跑去翻當年的英詩課本"Sound and Sense",沒尋著這首長詩,想必是在諾頓版的英國文學全集裡吧.無論如何,卻在"Sound and Sense"裡讀到好幾首雋永的短詩,以下兩首是一個對照頗符合我目前的心境.:

    SONG                                                  

   The year's at the spring,

   And day's at the morn;

   Morning's at seven;

   The hillside's dew-pearled;

   The snail's on the thorn;

   God's in his heaven----

   All's right with the world!

                                               Robert Browning

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DIRGE

Rough wind, that moanest loud

     Grief too sad for song;

Wild wind, when sullen cloud

     Knells all the night long;

Sad storm, whose tears are vain,

Bare woods, whose branches strain,

Deep caves and dreary main,---

     Wail, for the world's wrong!

                                                   Percy Bysshe Shelley

這一年來,真的感覺由天堂掉到地獄.反差好大呀!

幸好逆境中也有片刻的寧靜與快樂.多半是由書,音樂與電影中得來的.善感的詩人說出我的心情:

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

                                     Robert Frost

也有令人會心一笑的慧黠之作:

GIFT

   You tell me that silence

is nearer to peace than poems

but if for my gift

I brought you silence

(for I know silence)

you would say

   This is not silence

this is another poem

and you would hand it back to me.

                                           Leonard Cohen

吉光片羽,帶來美麗又溫柔的撫慰.