“A Story” (Excerpt) By Randall Jarrell (America)

抄寫: 盧暉宙 (語言學三)   攝影: 高肇彤 (哲學三)

“A Story” (Excerpt) By Randall Jarrell (America)

Even from the train the hill looked empty.
When I unpacked I heard my mother say:
“Remember to change your stockings every day—
Socks, I mean.” I went on walking past their
Buildings gloomy with no lights or boys
Into the country where the roads were lost.

But when I woke I thought: The roads aren’t lost.
That night the buildings were no longer empty
But packed and blazing with unpacking boys.
Up by the trestle I heard someone say:
“Then they haven’t heard of it.” I strained to hear their
Quiet funny voices, but it turned to day.

What do the students talk about all day?
Today the dean said: “There’s a new boy lost.”
He said it to the matron, I could hear their
Footsteps in the corridor, but it was empty.
I must tell them what I heard those people say.
When I get up I’ll tell the other boys.

I liked home better, I don’t like these boys.
When I wake up I think: “It’s dark today.”
When I go out these people hardly say
A word to me, I wrote home I had lost
My fountain pen, my mail-box is still empty
Because they’ve all forgotten me, they love their

New friends better—if I don’t get their
Letters ever I don’t care, I like these boys
Better than them, I’ll write them. 'We’ve still one room empty,”
The matron told the man who came today.
How could she lie like that? When the roads leave here they’re lost,
The signs in the country can’t think of what to say.

Someone must know. The people here all say
“I don’t,” I dream I ask them, and I see their
Thoughts don’t either, all of them are lost.
Don’t signs, don’t roads know any more than boys?
When I feel better, they’ll wake up one day
And find my bed’s the one that’s empty.