The shape of the skirt is
-we would say-
the shape of a bell
The legs are the clapper -
And some such more. Not a terrible poem, but certainly not MacLeish's best or anywhere near the top drawer. I felt I could hold such an opinion because I had read a good deal of Archibald MacLeish over the years. I could not, however, recall this poem about Marilyn Monroe (which it is; the poem announces it even when divorced from the picture - at the end MacLeish writes: My legs clap my name:/Marilyn, ma belle). I have looked for it since then and haven't been able to find it;.. which means nothing, of course. Poems are not like novels or legal opinions; they are more like blown leaves and any omnibus volume titled The Complete So-and-So must certainly be a lie. Poems have a way of getting lost under sofas - it is one of their charms, and one of the reasons they endure.

The shape of the skirt is
-we would say-
the shape of a bell
The legs are the clapper
裙子的形状
我们会说
是钟的形状
两条腿则是钟舌

Poems are not like novels or legal opinions; they are more like blown leaves and any omnibus volume titled The Complete So-and-So must certainly be a lie. Poems have a way of getting lost under sofas - it is one of their charms, and one of the reasons they endure.
诗不像小说或法律论述，到像是被风吹走的树叶，如果有人出版一本诗集，那一定是满纸谎言。诗就有办法不翼而飞，这正是诗的魅力所在，也是诗能流传久远的原因

I walked slowly along the shelves, examining the spines as best I could in the faint light, pulling one out now and then, and pausing once to look out a narrow window at the 2nd Avenue intersection up the street. I stood there and watched through the frost-rimmed glass as the traffic light
at the intersection cycled from red to green to amber and back to red again, and quite suddenly I felt the queerest - and yet very welcome -sense of peace come to me. It did not flood in; instead it seemed to almost steal in. Oh yes, I can hear you saying, that makes great sense; watching a stop-and-go light gives everyone a sense of peace.
All right; it made no sense. I grant you that. But the feeling was there, just the same. It made me think for the first time i r years of the winter nights in the Wisconsin farmhouse where I grew up: lying in bed in a draughty upstairs room and marking die contrast between the whistle of the January wind outside, drifting snow as dry as sand along miles of snow-fence, and the warmth my body created under the two quilts.

I looked up at the statue of Harriet White and there she still stood, looking stonily away towards the Garden across the way, as if nothing of any particular note had happened, as if such determination in a world as hard and as senseless as this one meant nothing ... or worse still, that it was perhaps the only thing which meant anything, the only thing that made any difference at all.
我抬头看着海莉的雕像，她仍然站在那儿，木然望着对街的花园，仿佛什么事都不曾发生，仿佛在这个艰辛，冷酷又无情的世界中，如此坚毅又没道理的意志力根本不算什么……或者更糟的是，惟有这股意志力，才是人世间唯一弥足珍贵的东西，惟有称得上有意义的东西。