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馬群 /埃德溫.繆爾 作品
離那個使全世界睡倒了的七日之戰，
還不到十二個月，
在深夜裏那群奇怪的馬兒來了。

在那時候我們已和沈默簽了契約，
但最初的幾天是多麼寂靜
我們聽著自己的呼吸聲便害怕。

第二天
無線電沒有了：我們旋著掣，沒有回音。
在第三天沒有軍艦經過，向北面去
甲板上堆滿了死屍。
在第六天一輛飛機從我們上面直衝下海。然後什麼也沒有了。
無線電啞掉：
不過仍站在我們的廚房角落，
或者仍開著，站在全世界上百萬的房間裏。
但是若它們開口說話，
若突然之間它們再開口說話，
若在中午十二點敲響時有一把聲音開口說話，
我們不會聽，我們不會許它帶回
那個一骨腦便推下它的孩子的壞透了的舊世界。
我們不會許它再來。
有時候我們想到正在睡夢中的那些國家，
在不能穿透的悲哀裏盲目地蜷縮著，
然後這想法因太怪異而使我們驚詫。

拖拉機在田裏躺著：到晚上
看來就像濕冷的海怪埋伏等待。
我們由得它去任它們生鏽：
它們會發霉爛掉就像其他肥土一樣。

我們要牛隻拖著久放一旁的生鏽的犁。
我們已回到悠久的先祖大地。
然後，那晚上夏天將盡時那群奇怪的馬兒來了。
我們聽到路上遠遠傳來的聲，
漸變為深沈的擂鼓聲：停一下，再繼續
到了轉角處變成空洞的雷鳴。
我們看見牠們的頭
像狂野的浪衝鋒遂害怕了。
我們在先祖時代已賣掉馬兒
來買新的拖拉機。

現在牠們對我們已陌生了
有如古老盾牌上的神駿
或是武士故事中的插圖。
我們不敢走近。
但牠們等著，固執又羞怯，就像牠們是由一古老的指令派來找我們的蹤跡
和找那早已忘師的亙古相依聯繫。

一開始我們全沒想過
這些是可以擁有和差遣的牲畜，
牠們之中有大約半打小馬
在那斷覺得世界裏某些荒野中產下
但新得像由自己的伊甸園而來。
從那時候起牠們拖我們的犁荷我們的重物，不過這無求的事奉仍使我們心痛。
我們的生命改變了：牠們的來到就是我們的開始。

The Horses By Edwin Muir

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter Nothing.
The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow, And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
'They'll moulder away and be like other loam'.
We make our oxen drag our rusty ploughs,
Long laid aside. We have gone back Far past our father's land.
And then, that evening Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited, Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent To buy new tractors.
Now they were strange to us As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield Or illustrations in a book of knights

By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship. In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half-a-dozen colts Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our ploughs and borne our loads, But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

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