The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
这几张脸在人群中幻景般闪现；
湿漉漉的黑树枝上花瓣数点。
—— In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound
《在地铁站里》 庞德
先是被这两个句子吸引，就查了一下，哦，诗人是庞德，诗歌名字是《在地铁站里》，在美国文学上找到原诗，才算是被彻底的惊艳到了。这首诗，有，且仅有，这两句话。
Wow！
两句话的诗！
……
真有才。
又顺手往后翻了翻，书上选的最后一首—— The River-Merchant's Wife: A letter ——乍一看平淡无奇的，看了一眼翻译——《长干行》，作者：李白——咦，瞬间以为是翻译书上自己加的李白的诗，可能是做对比赏析用。于是接着找 A Letter 的翻译原文。结果是，将书上所选诗篇与翻译都对了一遍，原来 A Letter 确是《长干行》！
啊，又一次惊艳了。
不过资料上说，The River-Merchant's Wife: A letter 这首诗是庞德根据旅日美国学者的笔记翻译的。中日英三国的文字及文化差异使得庞德的英译文与原文相去甚远。但庞德不愧为英诗的大家，这首从翻译角度理解存在较大问题的作品，从创作的角度看却是一篇难得的佳作，是英美那边的大学语文科目教材的常选材料。
今天先赏析 In a Station of the Metro 。
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
这几张脸在人群中幻景般闪现；
湿漉漉的黑树枝上花瓣数点。
这首诗诗行工整考究，意象奇妙突兀，音韵浑然天成，尽管只有两行却深受人们喜爱。在诗中，两个同构的审美意向（脸庞与花瓣）被并置一处，于比照中强调明与暗、清新与湿闷、群体与个性的对比。如休姆所说：“两个可见意向的组合，可以称上一个视觉和弦。它们的联合使人获得了一个与二者都不同的意象。”
In this poem, Pound attempts to produce the emotion he felt when he walked down into a Paris' subway station and suddenly saw a number of faces in the dim light. To capture the emotion, Pound uses the image of petals on a wet, black bough. The image is not a decoration. It is central to the poem's meaning. In fact, it is the poem's meaning.
In this brief poem, Pound uses the fewest possible words to convey an accurate image, according to the principles of the "Imagists". He tries to render exactly his observation of human faces seen in an underground railway station. He sees the faces, turning variously toward light and darkness, like flower petals which are half absorbed by, half resisting, and the wet, dark texture of a bough.
The word "Apparition", with its double meaning,binds the two aspects of the observation together:
1) apparition meaning "appearance", in the sense of something which appears, or shows up; something which can be clearly observed;
2) apparition meaning something that seems real but perhaps is not real; something ghostly which cannot be clearly observed.
Supplementary Materials 补充资料
The three principles that Pound endorsed as an Imagist:
1) Direct treatment of poetic subjects;
2) Elimination of merely ornamental or superfluous words;
3) Rhythmical composition in the sequence of the metronome.
