因火成烟

The Secret

by John Clare
 
 
I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.

And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.

And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.

 
秘密

我爱你，虽然我守口如瓶
这份爱意源远流长
你是给我带来欢乐的精灵
我的每一首歌都为你而唱

而每当我取次花丛
朵朵艳丽迷人
那时，在我的心中
只有你名字的清芬

在所有的角落
都有萋萋的芳草
我却把它们都看作
你飘逸的绿罗长袍

It is,in fact,no secret whom John Clare loved "right earlily and long";her name was Mary Joyce,and the two first met in 1800 when he was seven and she was three.They went to the same school in Glinton,near Peterborough,in a church vestry.It is there that Clare recorded his love for Mary by carving "J.C. 1808 Mary"in the wood.Their friendship seems to have ended around 1815 and Clare probably saw her for the final time in the 1820s.She died on July 16,1838.
All of the poems about Mary are thought to have been written much later in Clare's life,and this led to him idealizing her as a perfect muse.As he wrote in his autobiographical Sketches,"She was a beautiful girl & as the dream never awoke into reality her beauty was always fresh in my memory."

事实上，约翰·克莱尔这份“源远流长”的爱并非秘密；她的名字叫玛丽·乔伊斯。他们第一次见面是在1800年，当时他7岁，她3岁。后来，他们在彼得伯勒市附近的格灵顿镇就读同一所位于教堂里面的学校。就在那里，克莱尔在树上刻下“J.C. 1808 Mary”来印证他对玛丽的爱意。他们的友谊大概在1815年结束。克莱尔也许在1820-1830年之间见过玛丽最后一面。她在1838年7月16日去世。
估计所有关于玛丽的诗歌都是克莱尔在晚年写成的，因此，他把她理想化地看作一个完美的缪斯。正如他在自传体著作《草稿》中写的一样：“她是美丽的女孩，并且因为这个梦永远都不会变成现实，所以关于她的记忆在我心底历久常新。”