Denise Levertov was born in Ilford, Essex, England in 1923. Her first book The Double Image, published in 1946, brought her recognition as one of a group poets dubbed the "New Romantics." In 1947 Levertov married Mitchell Goodman, an American writer, and a year later they moved to America. They settled in New York City. After she published Here and Now (1956), With Eyes at the Back of our Heads (1959) and The Sorrow Dance (1967), she went on to publish more than twenty volumes of poetry, including Freeing the Dust (1975), which won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. She was also the author of four books of prose, most recently Tesserae (1995), and translator of three volumes of poetry, among them Jean Joubert's Black Iris (1989). From 1982 to 1993, she taught at Stanford University. She spent the last decade of her life in Seattle, Washington, during which time she published Poems 1968-1972 (1987), Breathing the Water (1987), A Door in the Hive (1989), Evening Train (1992), and The Sands of the Well (1996). Denise Levertov died in December 1997.

丹妮丝-列维尔托夫1923年出生于英格兰埃塞克斯郡的伊尔佛德市。她的第一本书《重影》于1946年出版，让她得以公认为“新浪漫派”诗人之一。1947年， 尼乌托夫与美国作家米切尔-古德曼结婚，一年后移民美国。他们定居纽约市。继《此时此地》（1956）、《我们脑后长眼》(1959)、《悲舞》(1967 )之后，她接着出版了二十多本诗集，其中包括获得马歇尔诗歌奖的《释尘》(1975)。她还是四本散文集的作者，最新出版的是《罗马古玩》(1995)；她翻译了三本诗集，其中有法国作家琼-儒贝耳的《黑眼膜》(1989)。从1982年到1993年，她在斯坦福大学任教。她生命的最后十年是在华盛顿州的西雅图市度过的，在这期间她出版了《诗集 1968-1972》(1987)，《呼吸水》(1987)，《蜂巢里的门》(1989)，《傍晚火车》(1992)，《井沙》(1996)。丹妮丝-列维尔托夫于1997年12月去世。

Edgar Dive studied at the London School of Economics and the Australian National University. He now lives in Hong Kong.

戴玨，伦敦经济学院和澳洲国立大学毕业。现居于香港。

Talking to Grief

和悲痛说话

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
			

啊，悲痛，我不该把你当作
一只无家可归的狗
一只来到后门
讨块面包皮，讨块没多少肉的骨头的狗。
我该信任你。

我该把你
哄进屋，给予你
自己的角落，
给一块烂垫子让你睡下，
还有你自己用的水盘。

你以为我不知道你一直住在
我的门廊下。
你渴望你那真实的空间
在冬天来到之前会准备好。你需要
你的名字，
你的项圈和标签。你需要
唬走擅闯者的权利，
把我的房子
看成是你自己的
把我
看成是你的人
把你自己
看成是我的狗。
			

Leaving Forever

永远地离开

                           
He says the waves in the ship's wake
are like stones rolling away.
I don't see it that way.
But I see the mountain turning,
turning away its face as the ship
takes us away.
			

他说船后的浪花
犹如石头般滚走。
我不那样看。
当船载着我们离开，
我却看见山在转身，
别过它的脸。