After Apple-Picking
by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

摘苹果后
王道余 译

我那长长的双柱梯子穿过一棵树
还在指向天堂，
有一只桶就在一旁
我还没有装满；而在树枝某处，
也许还有没摘的两三个苹果。
但摘苹果这活儿算告一段落。
夜晚已经弥漫着冬眠的气息，
苹果的香味：我正在昏昏欲睡。
我今天早上从饮水槽里捞起
一大块的玻璃。透过这块东西
我把这草枯霜冻的世界琢磨；
我视线里是挥之不去的怪异。
冰化了，我让它掉下、摔在地上。
但我其实
在它掉下之前就已渐有睡意，
我也明知
我的梦境会是什么样的形状。
巨大苹果，这边浮现，那边淡出，
有蒂的一端，有花的一端，
每个红褐色的斑点都很清楚。
我的脚弓不仅还残留着痛伤，
它也残留着梯子横杠的挤压。
树枝一弯，我能感到梯子一偏。
我还不断听到地窖里有声音
轰轰作响
那是一筐一筐的苹果在送进。
因为我摘苹果
已经摘得太多：我已累得太过
因自己曾经期望的巨大收获。
有十万万只水果需要我去摸
手里小心握，扯落，但不能松掉。


只要
砸到地皮，
不管是否碰伤，不管是否刺破，
肯定要归到用来造酒的那堆，
似乎一钱不值。
谁都能看出这次睡眠，我
会有什么麻烦，无论它是哪种睡眠。
如果他还在，
土拨鼠能说出这会不会有点
像他的长眠，如上所述般袭来，
抑或只是人的安睡？