Wen Yiduo: Silent Night (From Chinese)

This poem, never published in Wen's lifetime, explores the conflict of a dedicated family man who feels himself called to take risks for his country and for the larger society to which he cannot help but belong. It has been published with two different titles "Heartbeats" and "Silent Night". The latter alludes to a very famous Tang poem by Li Bai whose theme is rather germane.

Silent Night 

By Wen Yiduo

Translated by A.Z. Foreman

This lamp and these four walls bright with its bleach,

this desk and chair like faithful friends in reach,

this paper fragrance of old books beside

my darling teacup white as a chaste bride,

my young son nursing at his mother's breast,

my elder son whose snores announce good health and rest...

This eerie silent night. This rounded peace. These notes

of a thanksgiving hymn swell in my throat

to crack into a cursing diatribe.

No, silent night. I can't — won't take your bribe.

Who can enjoy a peace between four walls in here,

when his world reaches out to real frontiers?

These walls cannot block out the blast of war.

How can they halt my heart pounding? What for?

Better to choke my mouth with mud and sand

than croon the joy or grief of just one man.

Better lend mice my skull to burrow through

and feed this bag of flesh to maggots too,

if for a book of verse, a glass of wine and slight

comfort tick-tocking through a silent night

I fall deaf to my neighbors as they moan,

blind to those orphaned, widowed, shivering alone,

to men twitched dead in trenches, to madmen who chew

their beds, and all the horrors that life grinds us through.

Oh no, good fortune. I can't take your bribe.

My world is not what these walls circumscribe.

Just hear the gunfire! Death is roaring, reaving.

Silent night, how could you keep my heart from heaving?  

The Original:

靜夜

這燈光，這燈光漂白了四壁；
這賢良的棹椅，朋友似的親密；
這古書的紙香一陣陣的襲來；
要好的茶杯貞女一般潔白；
受哺的小兒接呷在母親懷裏，
鼾聲報道我大兒康健的消息……
這神秘的靜夜，這渾圓的和平，
我喉嚨裏顫動著感謝的歌聲。
但是歌聲馬上又變成了詛咒，
靜夜！我不能，不能受你的賄賂。
誰希罕你這牆內尺方的和平！
我的世界還有遼闊的邊境。
這四牆既隔不斷戰爭的喧囂，
你有什麼方法禁止我的心跳？
最好是讓這口裏塞滿了沙泥，
如其它只會唱著個人的休戚！
最好是讓這頭顱給田鼠掘洞，
讓這一團血肉也去餵著屍蟲，
如果只是為了一盃酒，一本詩
靜夜裏鐘擺搖來的一片閒適，
就聽不見了你們四鄰的呻吟，
看不見寡婦孤兒抖顫的身影，
戰壕裏的症攣，瘋人咬著病褟，
和各種慘劇在生活的磨子下。
幸福！我如今不能受你的私賄，
我的世界不在這尺方的牆內。
聽！又是一陣砲聲，死神在咆哮。
靜夜！你如何能禁止我的心跳？