Grey clouds and red clouds interweave in the east,
The flowers on the windowsill turned to face the dawn,
Petals after petals, waiting for the sun,
Flowers, withered flowers, flowers at dawn.
The flowers were in full bloom this morning, and the flowers were in full bloom yesterday.
In the early morning, the flowers wafted in the room.
The fragrance of flowers and colors is strong, and the fragrance of flowers is fading.
Flowers, withered flowers, flowers at dawn.
(Translated by Qiu Xiaolong)
Critics who study Eliot generally divide the poet's poetry creation into three stages. The Love Song of Pruefer Locke published by 19 15 and The Waste Land published by 1922 are called early works. Hollow man, from wasteland to 1925, medium-term work. Gray Wednesday published in 1930 and Quartet published in 1948 are late works. If we want to reflect the whole picture of the poet's poetry, we should also add a "first work" at the beginning and a "late work" at the end. Poetry before Dawn is the poet's first work and also a masterpiece in art. His poetic style is deeply influenced by the traditional romanticism of British and American poetry in Victorian times. At the end of 1908, the poet came into contact with the late French symbolism works and was influenced by them. Later, the poet met Pound, the master of Imagism, bid farewell to tradition and embarked on the road of wasteland.
In the poem, gray clouds and red clouds, flowers and withered flowers and flowers that have not yet opened are all waiting for dawn. Whether it is the flowers this morning or the flowers that failed yesterday, nature has given them the opportunity to open up and spit, and they all turn to the sun to welcome the dawn. The bright and sweet words such as "cloud", "flower", "dawn", "sunshine" and "fragrance" in the poem are the embodiment of Victorian poetry style and the reflection of the poet's mentality as a young man living in a rich family at dawn. This psychology of getting up at dawn and this bright timbre were soon shrouded in the smoke of the First World War, and poets rarely had such bright colors in their later poems. In this sense, this work with low artistic level reveals the undistorted spiritual side of the poet for us and should be cherished more. The life meaning symbolized in the poem is also positive. Although there is also a faint sadness about yesterday's yellow flowers in the poem, it is only the sadness of the Victorian era.
(Wang Chuanping)