书城英文图书New and Selected Poems
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第15章 Bog Oak

A carter's trophy

split for rafters,

a cobwebbed, black,

long-seasoned rib

under the first thatch.

I might tarry

with the moustached

dead, the creel-fillers,

or eavesdrop on

their hopeless wisdom

as a blow-down of smoke

struggles over the half-door

and mizzling rain

blurs the far end

of the cart track.

The softening ruts

lead back to no

'oak groves', no

cutters of mistletoe

in the green clearings.

Perhaps I just make out

Edmund Spenser,

dreaming sunlight,

encroached upon by

geniuses who creep

'out of every corner

of the woodes and glennes'

towards watercress and carrion.