A Peasant

by Ronald Stuart Thomas

Iago Prytherch his name, though, be allowed,

Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills,

Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud.

Docking mangels, chipping the green skin

From the yellow bones with a hallf-witted grin

Of satisfaction, or churning the crude earth

To a stiff sea of clods that glint in the wind---

So are his days spent, his spittled mirth

Rarer than the sun that cracks the cheeks

Of the gaunt sky perhaps once in a week.

And then at night see him fixed in his chair

Motionless, except when he leans to gob in the fire.

There is something frightening in the vacancy of his mind.

His clothes, sour with years of sweat

And animal contact, shock the refined,

But affected, sense with their stark naturalness.

Yet this is your proto, who season by season

Against siege of rain and the wind's attrition,

Preserves his stock, an impregnable fortress

Not to be stormed even in death's confusion.

Remember him then, for he, too, is a winner of wars

Enduring like a tree under the curious stars.

一個農民

伊阿戈-普里特奇是他的名字，請原諒

他只是光禿禿的威爾士山間的普通人，

在白云的縫隙當中關進了幾只羊。

剪短一顆顆飼牛的甜菜，削綠皮，

切黃梗，心滿意足地咧著嘴兒

傻笑;或者，猛勁兒犁翻粗糙的大地，

造出凝滯的泥土的海洋，在風中閃耀――

他這樣度著日子，流著口水的歡笑

比那或許一禮拜一次使憔悴的天公

笑逐顏開的太陽還要難見到。

夜晚，他在椅子上坐定，紋絲不動。

只有向爐火中吐痰時才歪一下身子。

他那空空的腦袋有點兒叫人害怕。

他的衣衫，由于終年累月地流汗

和接觸牲畜而發酸;這裸露的自然狀態

使文雅(而矯作)的人們深感驚駭。

但這是你的原型，一個季節又一個季節，

他抵御著暴雨的圍攻和狂風的侵襲，

保護著他的家族，那堅不可摧的堡壘，

即使在死亡的困惑中也不會受到沖擊。

記住他吧，因為他也是戰爭的勝利者，

猶如好奇的群星下一顆不朽的大樹。