If You Were Coming In the Fall                         如果你要在秋天来

      Emily Dickinson                                     艾米莉.狄金森

If you were coming in the fall                        如果你要在秋天来

I'd brush the summer by                               我便把夏天拂去

With half a smile and half a spurn                    半带微笑半带决绝

As housewives do a fly.                               像主妇把苍蝇驱。

If I could see you in a year                          若一年后才能见你

I'd wind the months in balls                          便把每月揉成团

And put them each in separate drawers                 再扔进一个个抽屉

Until their time befalls.                             直到它们全过完。

If only centuries delayed                             若你只迟来几世纪

I'd count them on my hand                             我便把日子细数

Subtracting 'till my fingers dropped                  一天天减直到指头

Into Van Dieman's land.  *                            掉入无人的荒芜。

If certain when this life was out                     如果要等此生结束

That yours and mine should be                         你才能与我相逢

I'd toss it yonder like a rind                        把生命当瓜皮抛弃

And taste eternity.                                   我便去品尝永恒。

But now all ignorant of length,                       但不知等候的期限

Of time's uncertain wing,                             时间的脚步不定

It goads me like the goblin bee                       这折磨就像只毒蜂

That will now state its sting!                        要叮却迟迟不行！

*Van Diemen's land: the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Able Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania. Landing at Blackman's Bay and later haveing the Dutch flag flown at North Bay, Tasman named the island Anthoonij van Diemenslandt in Honour of Anthony van Diemen, the governor-General of the Dutch East Indies who had sent Tasman on his voyage of discovery in 1642. Between 1772 and 1798 only the South East of the island was visited. Tasmania was not known to be an island until Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated it in the Norfolk in 1798-99.

                                             from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Diemen's_Land

This is a poem about love, time and separation. It is addressed to and is about someone who is away. The usual assumption is that the speaker is a woman, because of the domestic metaphors (the housewife and the fly, the balls of yarn), because the writer was a woman, and, I think, because it is traditionally women who wait.

Four of the stanzas begin with "if," a word that indicates uncertainty. This poem plays off certainty and uncertainty against each other. She is certain of her love for him; what she doesn't know is when they will be together and for how long. The time of absence gets longer in each stanza, progressing from fall in stanza one to a year to centuries to eternity in stanza four.

But the length of absence is unimportant, provided his return and their reunion are certain. She dismisses the importance of how long he may be absent by trivializing it; she brushes off the absence of a summer as a housewife would shoo a fly away. "Spurn" connotes contempt or scorn. A year is reduced to months, a smaller unit, and those are compared to balls of yarn to be stored separately. Storing them separately is like counting off individual units, making them more manageable and giving her a sense of control. "Befalls" continues the image of balls. She minimizes a century-long wait by modifying "century" with "only" and calling his absence "delayed." "Delayed" implies that eventually he will return. She counts time on her fingers, rather than on balls. The reference to Van Diemen's land indicates someplace far away. Van Diemen's land is the old name for Tasmania, an island off Australia. Why her fingers would drop is puzzling. One suggestion is that she has in mind a riddle: one person would curl her fingers under and then ask where they had gone; the answer was Van Diemen's Land or "down under."

The fourth stanza introduces a different time, eternity or timelessness. She would willingly die if they would be together forever. She compares her mortal life to a "rind." As the rind is the outer skin which protects the food, so her body (the "rind") contains a spirit or essence which would continue after her death. She continues the food metaphor with "taste." There is a tension and irony in the juxtaposition (placing next to each other) of "If" and "certain." Why are these two words incongruous?

The final stanza abruptly introduces a new train of thought, which is indicated by the first word "but." The previous stanzas were hypothetical--if; that is, they discussed imagined possibilities in the future. In this stanza she is in real time, "now." She deals with her reality, which is a frightening one. She calls time "uncertain"; she does not know (is "ignorant") what time or timelessness is or will bring. Her ignorance distresses or "goads" her. She uses the metaphor of a wing for the length of time to pass. The threatening potential of time continues the wing metaphor in her comparison of time to a "goblin bee." The bee threatens with its painful sting. But time's threat is even greater because unstated; it leaves her in uncertainty, doubt, distress. The degree of threat which time presents is suggested by "goblin;" a goblin is at best mischievous, at worst evil.

This is also a poem about anxiety, even dread.

Aanalysis from http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/fall.html