双语有声阅读：Bring me the sunset in a cup

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Bring me the sunset in a cup,

Reckon the morning's flagons up

And say how many Dew,

Tell me how far the morning leaps - 

Tell me what time the weaver¹ sleeps

Who spun² the breadth of blue!

 

Write me how many notes there be

In the new Robin³'s ecstasy⁴

Among astonished boughs⁵ - 

How many trips the Tortoise makes - 

How many cups the Bee partakes,

The Debauchee of Dews!

 

Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers⁶,

Also, who leads the docile⁷ spheres

By withes of supple⁸ blue?

Whose fingers string the stalactite - 

Who counts the wampum of the night

To see that none is due?

 

Who built this little Alban House

And shut the windows down so close

My spirit cannot see?

Who'll let me out some gala day

With implements⁹ to fly away,

Passing Pomposity¹⁰?

 

 

 

 

This is a remarkable¹¹ poem for its unconventional treatment of nature. Some questions don't have answers. But all questions have some wonder. 

 

The speaker asks for a cup of sunset, and wants the flasks¹² of dew to be opened and counted. Morning 'leaps', as all of a sudden the day brightens up in morning. And creator of this magical world is compared to a weaver bird weaving her nest.

 

Nature's bliss¹³ in its purest form is portrayed¹⁴ in the second stanza¹⁵. 'Astonished boughs' stand for trees surprised by the sweet melody of the robin singing out suddenly from them. The tortoise creeps along at a slow speed. The bees, greedy with thirst, are madly drinking the dew from the flowers and are drunk with the sweetness.

 

She also would like to know who has created the bridge of the Rainbow? And who bounds the obediently moving spheres in their orbits, by flexible twigs¹⁶ of supple blue in the sky? Who strings¹⁷ together the icicles that form the roofs of caves? And who is it that counts the beaded strings of shells (stars) at night to check if all is in place ?

 

The questioning continues in the fourth stanza. Who is it that has created this limited mind and body through the window of which, my spirit can not see clearly? Who will that be who some fine day will let me out ... far far away from the superficialities of this world?

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