那些有如神助的结构、情节和韵脚——

Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme--

为什么现在于我已无用处，

why are they no help to me now

当我要创造

I want to make

一种想象而成而非回忆出来的东西？

something imagined, not recalled?

我听得到我自己说话如聒噪：

I hear the noise of my own voice:

画家的灵视绝非一个透镜，

The painter's vision is not a lens,

它摩挲光线便会颤抖。

it trembles to caress the light.

但有时我眼光的技巧陈俗，

But sometimes everything I write

以此写出的一切

with the threadbare art of my eye

看似一张快照，

seems a snapshot,

刺激、应景、花哨、按组贴签，

lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,

从生活中拔高，

heightened from life,

但又被事实瘫痪。

yet paralyzed by fact.

一切都是失当的联盟。

All's misalliance.

然而为何不直说发生了什么？

Yet why not say what happened?

祈求达到维米尔的准确所具有的

Pray for the grace of accuracy

优雅，他那个满溢思念的女孩

Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination

受到太阳的启示，被他描绘得

stealing like the tide across a map

犹如潮水流经一张地图。

to his girl solid with yearning.

我们都是仓促而过的可怜事实，

We are poor passing facts,

受到这事警示，要让

warned by that to give

照片中的每一个形象

each figure in the photograph

具有一个活生生的名字。

his living name.