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Rabindranath Tagore: Stray Birds (1916)

82

LET life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.

–Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Jason Mraz: I’m Yours

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Jason Mraz – I’m Yours – “We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.” (2008)

Well you done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you’re so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks
Now I’m trying to get back
Before the cool done run out
I’ll be giving it my bestest
And nothing’s going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it’s again my turn to win some or learn some

I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I’m yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart and you’ll find love love love love
Listen to the music of the moment babay sing with me
I love peace for melody
And It’s our God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love loved

So I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I’m sure
There’s no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, I’m yours

Scooch on over closer dear
And i will nibble your ear

I’ve been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and laughed
I guess what I’m be saying is there ain’t no better reason
To rid yourself of vanity and just go with the seasons
It’s what we aim to do
Our name is our virtue

But I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I’m sure

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart and you’ll find that the sky is yours
Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t
There’s no need to complicate
Cause our time is short
This oh this this is out fate, I’m yours

James Blunt: You’re Beautiful

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James Blunt – You’re Beautiful – “Back to Bedlam” (2004)

My life is brilliant.
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I’m sure.
She smiled at me on the subway.
She was with another man.
But I won’t lose no sleep on that,
‘Cause I’ve got a plan.

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don’t know what to do,
‘Cause I’ll never be with you.

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Flying high
And I don’t think that I’ll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don’t know what to do,
‘Cause I’ll never be with you.
You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
There must be an angel with a smile on her face,
When she thought up that I should be with you.
But it’s time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.

Plain White T’s: Hey There Delilah

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Plain White T’s – Hey There Delilah – “All That We Needed” (2005)

Hey There Delilah
What’s it like in New York City?
I’m a thousand miles away
But girl, tonight you look so pretty
Yes you do
Times Square can’t shine as bright as you
I swear it’s true

Hey there Delilah
Don’t you worry about the distance
I’m right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes
Listen to my voice, it’s my disguise
I’m by your side

Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
What you do to me

Hey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me, girl
Someday I’ll pay the bills with this guitar
We’ll have it good
We’ll have the life we knew we would
My word is good

Hey there Delilah
I’ve got so much left to say
If every simple song I wrote to you
Would take your breath away
I’d write it all
Even more in love with me you’d fall
We’d have it all

Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they’ve got planes and trains and cars
I’d walk to you if I had no other way
Our friends would all make fun of us
and we’ll just laugh along because we know
That none of them have felt this way
Delilah I can promise you
That by the time we get through
The world will never ever be the same
And you’re to blame

Hey there Delilah
You be good and don’t you miss me
Two more years and you’ll be done with school
And I’ll be making history like I do
You’ll know it’s all because of you
We can do whatever we want to
Hey there Delilah here’s to you
This one’s for you

Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
Oh it’s what you do to me
What you do to me.

陈奕迅:Shall We Talk

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陈奕迅 – Shall We Talk – 《七》(2003)

作曲:陈辉阳
作词:林夕
编曲:金培达

小叮当 不爱回家喫饭
宁愿在大安公园捉迷藏
看明月光 低头不思故乡
宁愿看漫画不听妈妈的评弹

孩子们只会贪玩 父母都只会期望
为什么天南地北不能互相体谅
蟋蟀对着螳螂 有什么东西好说
Shall we talk shall we talk
好像过去牵着手去上学堂

请你说 我们为何变成陌路人的模样
请你说 还有什么比沉默更难堪
难道互相隐藏
就能避免了失望
表白有什么可怕
请你不怕为难不要拐弯

*

屏幕闪亮 两个人一起看
什么都不谈只敢打着官腔
情侣的晚餐 白开水一样淡
宁愿面对着一部电脑 无事忙

情侣都善于说谎 大人都会向钱看
为什么天南地北不能互相体谅
蟋蟀对着螳螂 有什么东西好说
Shall we talk shall we talk
好让我们重新认识 别隐瞒

请你说 我们为何变成陌路人的模样
请你说 还有什么比沉默更难堪
难道互相隐藏
就能避免了失望
表白有什么可怕
请你不要拐弯

请你说 请你说出心里难以承受的伤
不能说 除非我们早已忘记了爱的力量
聊天只能假装 表情需要勉强
何必把这种遗憾 带到未来的天堂

天黑黑 孩子不在身旁
都跑到外面干活 爱吃便当
And shall we talk
只有树叶摇晃
沉默到听得见那如歌的行板

Bertrand Russell: What I Have Lived For

The Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography (1956)

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness–that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what–at last–I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) won the Nobel prize for literature for his History of Western Philosophy and was the co-author of Principia Mathematica.

The Hollow Men (1925)

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Mistah Kurtz- he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

空心人

给老盖一个便士

赵罗蕤 译

我们是空心人
我们是填塞起来的人
彼此倚靠着
头颅装满了稻草。可叹啊!
我们干枯的嗓音,在
我们说悄悄话时
寂静而无意义
像干草地中的风
或碎玻璃堆上的老鼠脚
在我们那干燥的地窖里

有态而无形,有影而无色
麻木了的力度,没有动作的手势;

那些已经亲眼目睹
跨进了死亡这另一个国度时
只要记得我们——不是
丢魂失魄的野人,而只是
空心人
填塞起来的人。

我梦中不敢面对
而在死亡的梦乡
又不会出现的眼睛:
在那里,眼睛是
倾塌的柱上的阳光
在那里,一棵树在摇曳
而人声只是
在风中歌唱
比一颗正在消失的星星
更加遥远而庄严。

不要让我挨近
死亡的梦乡
让我穿上
这些故意穿上的伪装
老鼠皮,乌鸦皮,田里的
交叉着的标竿
和风一样行动
不要更近——

不是黄昏之乡的
最后相会

这是死亡的地带
这是石头的人像
被竖立起,这里他们受到了
一只死人的手的哀求
在一颗隐退下去的星星的闪光下。

在死亡的另一个国度里
是否这样
独自在这时醒来
感受着温柔的震颤
那愿意接吻的双唇
形成了对破碎石头的祈祷。

眼睛不在这里
在这星星即将死去的山谷
在这空心的山谷里
在我们这已经失去的破碎的王国
这里没有眼睛

在这最后的相会处
我们在一起摸索
避免语言
在这条肿胀的河滩头聚会

看不见,除非
眼睛重新出现
像那死亡的黄昏之国的
永恒星星
空心人的
唯一希望。

我们在这里围绕这带刺的梨树转圈
带刺的梨树带刺的梨树
我们在这里围绕这带刺的梨树转圈
在上午五点的时候。

在概念
和实际之间
在动作
和行为之间
落下影子
因为王国是你的

在形成概念
和创造之间
在情感
和回应之间
落下影子
生命是漫长的

在欲望
和痉挛之间
在能量
和生存之间
在本质
和遗传之间
落下影子
因为王国是你的

因为你是
生命是
因为你是

世界就是这样告终的
世界就是这样告终的
世界就是这样告终的
不是砰的一声而是一声抽泣。

西江月

日日深杯酒满,
朝朝小圃花开。
自歌自舞自开怀,
无拘无束无碍。

青史几番春梦,
红尘多少奇才。
不消计较与安排,
领取而今现在。

小雅

《詩經‧小雅‧大東》

維天有漢,監亦有光。
跂彼織女,終日七襄。

雖則七襄,不成報章。
睆彼牽牛,不以服箱。

《古詩十九首》

迢迢牽牛星,皎皎河漢女。
纖纖擢素手,札札弄機杼。
終日不成章,泣涕零如雨。
河漢清且淺,相去復幾許。
盈盈一水間,脈脈不得語。

青玉案

予尝谓故人居室距新居不过百步之遥,晚饭后信步寻访却不得见,迂回辗转数周亦无所踪。归之,百思而不得解。当真山中方数日,世上已千年?

[宋] 贺铸 (1052-1125)

凌波不过横塘路,但目送、芳尘去。锦瑟华年谁与度?月桥花院,琐窗朱户,只有春知处。

碧云冉冉蘅皋暮,彩笔新题断肠句。试问闲愁都几许?一川烟草,满城风絮,梅子黄时雨。