边地

更新: Dec 19, 2021

420

原作者 H.P.Lovecraft

译者：米切尔

当夜色冷却泛黄的溪流

阴影潜近密林的道路

兹姆巴威的宫殿灯火摇曳

为了一名恐惧入梦的伟大君主

因为他是全人类中的唯一

曾跋涉过巨蛇避开的沼泽

挣扎前行直至那落日之坡

来到位于其后的草地

自眼睛被人类用以视物

此地便未有他人之眼窥见

但在这，当日落渐趋黑夜

他发现了古老秘密的藏身处

奇诡之塔在平原彼方升起

高墙与壁垒于四方林立

那污染大地的遥远穹顶

就如雨后不洁的真菌

一轮妖月扭曲上移

照耀没有起源的生命的属领

并笼罩远方的塔与穹顶

显现出它们的封闭与恶意

然后他如幼时般奔过

恍惚间穿越藤蔓垂落的废墟

为他所见而战栗，因为这里

是不应有人类存在的死与毁灭之所

不似人类的形体若隐若现，半虚半实

天上豁开可惧的空洞,吞噬星光

它们自那儿沸腾着向下流淌

漫至这些充斥恶意的虚无墙壁

不定形物翻滚群聚

悄然回归疯狂邪恶之地的空隙

它们暗淡的爪子塞满

人类所梦所知之物的残骸

这自外而来的古老猎人

大祭司都未曾讲述的寓言

关于它们如何找到旧世界

并带走所寻的异宝奇珍

它们被恐怖环绕的隐秘边地

仍渴望君临百万界宇之上

它们为尚存诸族痛恨唾弃

却仍在隐居地安然无恙

观者惊恐万状,大汗淋漓

匍匐爬回巨蛇避开的沼洼

最终他伴随日升躺下

在他熟睡的宫殿里重获安宁

无人见其离开,又在黎明归来

他在那受诅的黑暗中的遭遇

也未给他的肉身留下任何痕迹

——然而他的安眠已一去不返

当夜色冷却泛黄的溪流

阴影潜近密林的道路

兹姆巴威的宫殿灯火摇曳

为了一名恐惧入梦的伟大君主

The Outpost

By H. P. Lovecraft

When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze
For a great King who fears to dream.

For he alone of all mankind
Waded the swamp that serpents shun;
And struggling toward the setting sun,
Came on the veldt that lies behind.

No other eyes had vented there
Since eyes were lent for human sight—
But there, as sunset turned to night,
He found the Elder Secret’s lair.

Strange turrets rose beyond the plain,
And walls and bastions spread around
The distant domes that fouled the ground
Like leprous fungi after rain.

A grudging moon writhed up to shine
Past leagues where life can have no home;
And paling far-off tower and dome,
Shewed each unwindowed and malign.

Then he who in his boyhood ran
Through vine-hung ruins free of fear,
Trembled at what he saw—for here
Was no dead, ruined seat of man.

Inhuman shapes, half-seen, half-guessed,
Half solid and half ether-spawned,
Seethed down from starless voids that yawned
In heav’n, to these blank walls of pest.

And voidward from that pest-mad zone
Amorphous hordes seethed darkly back,
Their dim claws laden with the wrack
Of things that men have dreamed and known.

The ancient Fishers from Outside—
Were there not tales the high-priest told,
Of how they found the worlds of old,
And took what pelf their fancy spied?

Their hidden, dread-ringed outposts brood
Upon a million worlds of space;
Abhorred by every living race,
Yet scatheless in their solitude.

Sweating with fright, the watcher crept
Back to the swamp that serpents shun,
So that he lay, by rise of sun,
Safe in the palace where he slept.

None saw him leave, or come at dawn,
Nor does his flesh bear any mark
Of what he met in that curst dark—
Yet from his sleep all peace has gone.

When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze,
For a great King who fears to dream.