我下面贴的《1913年九月》就是这样一首战斗作品。他一生追求的那位女子伽安是一个坚定的爱尔兰独立战士，这对他影响相当大。

但是，叶芝在爱尔兰独立运动刺刀见红的血战当中，始终没有站在战斗的第一线。政治也从来没有成为他创作的中心。他在平静写作宗教题材诗的时候，爱尔兰人一片片地在英军枪声中倒下！我胡乱猜想，这或许也是伽安最终没有嫁给他的原因？

我觉得品超是把他的爱国给浪漫化和拔高了。他如果出生在中国，一定会像北岛那样写一些反叛的诗作；但最后，他的禀赋仍然是乔伊斯式的，仍然会以形上题材为主。在这方面，近代的斯威伏特是爱尔兰大师当中唯一的例外：他是真正把时政讽刺当成了主业的。

5. September 1913



WHAT need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone; 5
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind
The names that stilled your childish play, 10
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, 15
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died, 20
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave;
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again, 25
And call those exiles as they were,
In all their loneliness and pain
You’d cry ‘Some woman’s yellow hair
Has maddened every mother’s son’:
They weighed so lightly what they gave, 30
But let them be, they’re dead and gone,
They’re with O’Leary in the grave.