Эмили Э. Дикинсон. Коль вспоминаем

Коль вспоминаем, знать, не помним.
У памяти в плену.
А забывая, вспоминаем
И я близка  к тому.
Но если радостно скучание
И вся мольба моя,
То сколько жизни было в пальцах,
Букет сбиравших дня!

33

If recollecting is forgetting,
then I remember yet.
And if forgetting, recollecting,
how near I shall forget.
And if to miss, were merry,
and to mourn, were gay,
how very blithe the fingers
that gather this today!
            
            Emily Dickinson               

Прим. переводчика.

Стихотворение было послано Самуэлю Боулзу (Samuels Bowles) в сопровождении цветов, которые Эмили собрала для него, и говорит о том , как онa без него.

Emily has again enclosed flowers in a letter to Samuel Bowles. She tells him in this bit of verse that she misses him and is sad. She employs lots of word play, employing opposites to make her point. Except, well, it doesn't quite hang together in parts, at least the way I parse it:
- recollecting = forgetting: since she "remember[s] not" (forgot, in other words), that means she actually remembered.
- forgetting = remembering: since she almost forgot, that means she actually almost remembered.
Perhaps the point was that she did remember him but, alas, came close to forgetting.
The date range is based on the year Emily Dickinson died and the year the third series of Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, was published. 1896 is penciled on the back of the transcript and appears in the finding aid for the collection.               
               

                Стихи.ру 24 апреля 2015 года