My poem(2)

Isabelle wants to say:

I seldom* listen to Chinese songs,but there’s one I single cycle* play a lot.It’s beautiful;in on many nights,the melody is around me,like water flowsing in the room.

Music heals,I feel relaxed and safe.

Later I knew learnt/found out that it was Yeats’s poem.I read it in English, but I felt like that I didn’t like the words, English words.They were too simple, too undramatic.I preferred Chinese.

I talked with my dad. I asked him why I fell had fallen in love with some Chinese-translated poems ,but felt nothing with for the original English versions; Chinese words were more beautiful.

Dad said:”That’s about culture.Different cultures have different ways to express.We Chinese people,we use hieroglyphics, we use beautiful words,you enjoy the feeling that words bring you,you enjoy the beauty of words themselves.But as for foreign authors，they care more about the poem,the poem itself.They write down what they feel,the main ideas.They focus on what they wanna want to express,their soul and the poem’s soul.”

So I read this poem again and again,I found more things,I got more feelings.Even though now I can’t tell which the way to express them is better,I think both (of theym) are beautiful.

I read a lot of Yeats’ poems,I like the love underneath his pen.It’s peace,it’s trust,it’s duty,it’s taking care,it’s treasuring,it’s immortalization*.

*this word is rather old-fashioned; a modern equivalent would be 'rarely'

*you mean 'play again and again', but 'play a lot' means the same thing.

*I don't like this word : it's clumsy, out of keeping with the beauty of the preceding words. 'Immortality' would perhaps be better. 

Here’s a link of the Chinese version song,’when you are old’:
https://youtu.be/6qNtVNkuPgo


When you are old 　
　　--- William Butler Yeats 　
　　When you are old and grey and full of sleep, 　
　　And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 　　
　　And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 　
　　Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 　　
　　How many loved your moments of glad grace, 　
　　And loved your beauty with love false or true, 　　
　　But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, 　
　　And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
　　And bending down beside the glowing bars, 　
　　Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 　　
　　And paced upon the mountains overhead
　　And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.