Mary Oliver was born in 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio. She attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College, but did not receive a degree from either institution. She held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College until 2001. In addition to such major awards as the Pulitzer and National Book Award, Oliver has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has also won the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

玛丽-奥利弗1935年9月10日生于美国俄亥俄州，13岁开始写诗，1962年玛丽前往伦敦，后又回到美国。她的诗歌赢得了多项奖项，其中包括国家图书奖和普利策诗歌奖（1984年）。她的主要诗集有：《夜晚的旅行者》（1978），《美国原貌》 （1983）， 《灯光的屋宇》（1990），《新诗选》（1992），《白松》（1994）等。她现居马萨诸塞州。

成其的诗文散见于网刊和纸刊，现居安徽。

Cheng Qi's poems and articles appeared in various publications. He lives in Anhui.

The Swan

天鹅

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air-
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds-
A white cross streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
			

你是否也看见它，整夜，漂浮在黑暗的河上？
你是否看见它在早晨，飞入银色的空气——
一束白色的花，
丝绸与亚麻的一阵完美抖动，当它
将头倚在翅膀中；一道雪堤，一片开满百合的坡岸，
它黑色的喙咬住了空气？
你是否听见它的笛声和哨音
一种刺耳的黑色音乐——像雨拍打着树——像一片瀑布
冲下黑色的边缘？
最后，你是否看见它，就在云层下——
滑过天空的一个白十字架，它的脚
像黑色的叶子，它的翅膀像河流上舒展的光？
于是，在你心里是否感受到它如何从属于万物？
你最终是否明白，美是为了什么？
你是否为此改变了你的生活？