‘Autumn’ and ‘Fall’by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Iris Origo) and Robin Robertson; introduced by Andrew McCulloch

秋天
上帝，时间已经到了。丰富是夏天的收获。
现在让你的影子在日晷上逗留，
在无垠的平原上放任你的风
让最后的葡萄沉重地悬挂在藤上。
现在再给予它们一小时甘美的时光
充分成熟吧；踩着最后一滴腻人的甜蜜
进入令人陶醉的美酒。
做梦和创立的时间已经过去了。
孤独，孤独，寂寞将继续存在，
醒来，阅读，写无尽的文字，
沿着长长的林荫道无目的漫步，
此时最后的叶子被风雨打落。
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Translated by Iris Origo (1954)
秋天
和里尔克
树叶从枯萎的花园的树上，飘落，飘落
飘远，飘远；似乎它们缓慢的
自由降落是天空下跌。
今晚这个沉重的尘世离弃了
其他所有的星星，卷入寂静。
现在我们都飘落着。我的手，我的心，
在黑暗中失速飘零，起起伏伏地落下。
有人仍然相信有一个筛选，抓住树叶的人，
所有那些轻轻落下的，生命。
ROBIN ROBERTSON (1999)
Rilke (1875–1926) – according to Paul Valéry “the most glorious poet since Goethe” – spent most of his adult life wandering between European capitals, single-mindedly devoted to poetry. In the introduction to Voices (1977), a translation of Rilke’s Das Buch der Bilder (1902) in which “Herbsttag” (“Autumn Day”) first appeared, Robert Bly suggests that what the poet describes in the last stanza of this poem is in fact the life he had chosen for himself. Perhaps this is why to “wake and read and write unending letters / And wander aimless down long avenues” sounds oddly consoling. But where the benign cadences and confident apostrophes of Iris Origo’s translation have a Biblical ring, Robin Robertson’s version, from his collection Slow Air (2002), provides less obvious uplift. This is a mortal world in which everything decays, although the alteration of “some still believe” to “we still believe” in his collected version suggests the door to redemption is not completely shut.
Autumn
Master, the time has come. Rich was the summer’s gain.
Now on the dial let Thy shadow linger,
Loosen Thy winds above the boundless plain.
Let the last grapes hang heavy on the vine.
Grant them yet one more mellow southern hour
To ripen fully; tread the final drop
Of cloying sweetness into heady wine.
The time has passed for dreaming or for building.
Alone, alone, the lonely will remain,
And wake and read and write unending letters,
And wander aimless down long avenues,
While the last leaves are blown by wind and rain.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Translated by Iris Origo (1954)
Fall
after Rilke
The leaves are falling, falling from trees
in dying gardens far above us; as if their slow
free-fall was the sky declining.
And tonight this heavy earth is falling away
from all the other stars, drawing into silence.
We are all falling now. My hand, my heart,
stall and drift in darkness, see-sawing down.
And some still believe there is one who sifts and holds
the leaves, the lives, of all those softly falling.
ROBIN ROBERTSON (1999)