A cloudless night like this

这样一个无云的夜晚

Can set the spirit soaring:

可以让灵魂翱翔：

After a tiring day

疲劳的一天之后

The clockwork spectacle is

时钟以它十八世纪

Impressive in a slightly boring

多少令人厌烦的习惯

Eighteenth-century way.

给你留下深刻的印象。

It soothed adolescence a lot

它安慰青春期

To meet so shameless a stare;

去会见如此恬不知耻的凝视；

The things I did could not

我做的事情不会

Be so shocking as they said

像他们说的那样骇人听闻，

If that would still be there

那些事情依然存在

After the shocked were dead

震撼之后是死亡

Now, unready to die

现在，还没做好死的准备

But already at the stage

但是已经出现在了舞台

When one starts to resent the young,

当一个人开始怨恨青年，

I am glad those points in the sky

我乐于那些天空中的点

May also be counted among

在中年的造物之中

The creatures of middle-age.

也可以被计数。

It's cosier thinking of night

这是让人舒服的思想

As more an Old People's Home

想象夜晚是一所老年人之家

Than a shed for a faultless machine,

而不是完美机器的窝棚，

That the red pre-Cambrian light

前寒武纪的红光

Is gone like Imperial Rome

消失于下午五点

Or myself at seventeen.

像我一个人的罗马帝国。

Yet however much we may like

然而或许我们更符合

The stoic manner in which

坚忍者的风格，古典

The classical authors wrote,

作家们就是这样写作，

Only the young and rich

只有年轻富有的人

Have the nerve or the figure to strike

才有勇气或身份去撞击

The lacrimae rerum note.

悲伤神奇的笔记。

因为当代的支撑者远远

For the present stalks abroad

比不上从前，而它的错误

Like the past and its wronged again

再度呜咽并且被忽视，

Whimper and are ignored,

真理不能被遮蔽；

And the truth cannot be hid;

有人选择了他们的痛苦，

Somebody chose their pain,

那些不必发生的事情发生了。

What needn't have happened did.

恰在这个夜晚发生的一切

Occurring this very night

没有既定的准则可循，

By no established rule,

许多事件也许已经推翻了

Some event may already have hurled

它在法律的正确性中

Its first little No at the right

最初的小数字，我们答应去教育

Of the laws we accept to school

我们后洪荒时代的世界：

Our post-diluvian world:

但是星辰在头顶燃烧，

But the stars burn on overhead,

没有意识到最后的结局，

Unconscious of final ends,

当我步行回家，躺到床上，

As I walk home to bed,

我问自己怎样的判决在等待

Asking what judgment waits

我的儿子，和我所有的朋友们，

My person, all my friends,

以及美利坚合众国。

And these United States.