To Language
Last year, I applied for a master's degree in applied linguistics at the Top One™ language university in China, but for multiple reasons, I quit the interview and went home. It's been more than half a year now, and while I was lying on my bed and wasting my time at home, I came across this poem.
The poet, Jorge Luis Borges, wrote two English poems for a woman whom he was desperately in love with, and this is one of them. Both the original poem and the translation touched my soul—I have never felt a love this desperate for a human being, but I believe I have for language. Therefore, even though I'm not currently a linguistics student, I would like to dedicate these lines to language—I am always fascinated by your beauty, your allure, as humanity's greatest creation.
What can I hold you with?
我用什么才能留住你？
I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of the ragged suburbs.
我给你瘦落的街道、绝望的落日、荒郊的月亮。
I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.
我给你一个久久地望着孤月的人的悲哀。
I offer you whatever insight my books may hold, whatever manliness or humour my life.
我给你我的书中所能蕴含的一切悟力，以及我生活中所能有的气概和幽默。
I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.
我给你一个从末有过信仰的人的忠诚。
I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow - the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.
我给你我设法保全的我自己的核心——不营字造句，不和梦交易，不被时间、欢乐和逆境触动的核心。
I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.
我给你早在你出生前多年的一个傍晚看到的一朵黄玫瑰的记忆。
I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.
我给你关于你生命的诠释，关于你自己的理论，你的真实并惊人的存在。
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
我给你我的寂寞、我的黑暗、我心的饥渴；我试图用困惑、危险、失败来打动你。