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NABOKOV Vladimir - Pale Fire

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Are some less lucky, or do all escape?<br />

A syllogism: other men die; but I<br />

Am not another; therefore I'll not die.<br />

Space is a swarming in the eyes; and time,<br />

A singing in the ears. In this hive I'm<br />

Locked up. Yet, if prior to life we had<br />

Been able to imagine life, what mad,<br />

Impossible, unutterably weird,<br />

220 Wonderful nonsense it might have appeared!<br />

So why join in the vulgar laughter? Why<br />

Scorn a hereafter none can verify:<br />

The Turk's delight, the future lyres, the talks<br />

With Socrates and Proust in cypress walks,<br />

The seraph with his six flamingo wings,<br />

And Flemish hells with porcupines and things?<br />

It isn't that we dream too wild a dream:<br />

The trouble is we do not make it seem<br />

Sufficiently unlikely; for the most<br />

230 We can think up is a domestic ghost.<br />

How ludicrous these efforts to translate<br />

Into one's private tongue a public fate!<br />

Instead of poetry divinely terse,<br />

http://www.en8848.com.cn/『原版英语』

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