[英国]华兹华斯顾子欣 译
我好似一朵孤独的流云，
高高地飘游在山谷之上，
突然我看到一大片鲜花，
是金色的水仙遍地开放。
它们开在湖畔，开在树下
它们随风嬉舞，随风飘荡。
它们密集如银河的星星，
像群星在闪烁一片晶莹；
它们沿着海湾向前伸展，
通向远方仿佛无穷无尽；
一眼看去就有千朵万朵，
万花摇首舞得多么高兴。
粼粼湖波也在近旁欢跳，
却不知这水仙舞得轻俏；
诗人遇见这快乐的伙伴，
又怎能不感到欢欣雀跃；
我久久凝视--却未能领悟
这景象所给带给我的精神至宝。
后来多少次我郁郁独卧，
感到百无聊赖心灵空漠；
这景象便在脑海中闪现，
多少次安慰过我的寂寞；
我的心又随水仙跳起舞来，
我的心又重新充满了欢乐。
【赏析】：
这首诗写于诗人从法国回来不久。诗人带着对自由的向往去了法国，参加一些革命活动。但法国革命没有带来预期的结果，随之而来的是混乱。诗人的失望和受的打击是可想而知的，后来在他的朋友和妹妹的帮助下，情绪才得以艰难地恢复。这首诗就写于诗人的心情平静之后不久。
在诗的开头，诗人将自己比喻为一朵孤独的流云，孤单地在高高的天空飘荡。孤傲的诗人发现一大片金色的水仙，它们欢快地遍地开放。在诗人的心中，水仙已经不是一种植物了，而是一种象征，代表了一种灵魂，代表了一种精神。
水仙很多，如天上的星星，都在闪烁。水仙似乎是动的，沿着弯屈的海岸线向前方伸展。诗人为有这样的旅伴而欢欣鼓舞、欢呼跳跃。在诗人的心中，水仙代表了自然的精华，是自然心灵的美妙表现。但是，欢快的水仙并不能时时伴在诗人的身边，诗人离开了水仙，心中不时冒出忧郁孤寂的情绪。这时诗人写出了一种对社会、世界的感受：那高傲、纯洁的灵魂在现实的世界只能郁郁寡欢。当然，诗人的脑海深处会不时浮现水仙那美妙的景象，这时的诗人双情绪振奋，欢欣鼓舞。
诗歌的基调是浪漫的，同时带着浓烈的象征主义色彩。可以说，诗人的一生只在自然中找到了寄托。
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” was written by William Wordsworth, the representative poet of the early romanticism. As a great poet of nature, William Wordsworth was the first to find words for the most elementary sensations of man face to face with natural phenomena. These sensations are universal and old but, once expressed in his poetry, become charmingly beautiful and new. His deep love for nature runs through short lyrics such as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed --- and gazed --- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is a poem about nature. With his pure and poetic language, Wordsworth brings us into a beautiful world where there are daffodils, trees and breeze. We follow the poet at every turn of his feelings. We share his melancholy when he “wandered lonely as a cloud” and his delight the moment his heart “with pleasure fills ”. We come to realize the great power of nature that may influence our life deeply as revealed in the poem.
Edgar Allan Poe once described poetry as “ music… combined with a pleasure idea”. In the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, the poet also makes great use of the “music ”of the language to achieve sound beauty in addition to convey meaning. He employs masculine rhyme in “a, b, a, b, c, c” pattern to receive emphasis as a musical effect. (e.g. “cloud” (a), “hills” (b), “crowd” (a), “daffodils” (b), “trees” (c), “breeze” (c) in stanza 1). He also achieves musical quality by the management of alliteration (e.g. “That floats on high o’er vales and hills” in line 2 and “Beside the lake, beneath the trees” in line 5) and assonance (e.g. “beneath the trees in line 5” and “ They stretched in never-ending line” in line 9) and consonance (e.g. “ vales and hills” in line 2 ). Besides the repetition of sounds, the poet also makes his poem a strong appeal for us in language that is rhythmical. He arranges his poem in lines of iambic tetrameter in the main with alternation of iambic trimeter.
( e.g. I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze )
He slowed down the tempo in line 4 to keep in accordance with his bated breath the moment he glimpses at a host of golden daffodils thus convey to us the poet’s intoxication in the face of nature. With all these musical devices, Wordsworth secures a songlike effect of his poem in addition to communicate his emotion and meaning.
An old saying goes “There are pictures in poetry and poetry in pictures”. It finds its most eloquent examples in most of the Chinese Tang poems that present the readers with beautiful pictures. In the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, the poet also seeks to express his emotions by providing the sense impressions he has through imagery. He depicts a picture in which “a host of golden daffodils (visual imagery) fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (kinaesthetic imagery) so vividly that it appeals richly to our senses and to our imagination.
Wordsworth, in the poem, also employs figurative language to evoke not only the visual effect but also the emotional response. (e.g. in line 1, the poet makes a comparison between “I wandered lonely” and “a cloud” by the use of simile, thus convey to us his lonely and melancholy mood with the image of “cloud”. In line 7, he also amplifies the visual effect by the use of another simile “Continuous as the stars that shine…” to evoke our sense of “daffodils” with the image of “stars” twinkling on the milky way which is familiar to us all. He goes further to impress us with the image of countless daffodils with an overstatement in line 9 “They stretched in never-ending line”). Besides, natural things are also endowed with human being’s characters by the poet’s subtle use of personification. (e.g. “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance” “The waves beside them danced”) therefore, as we read the poem, we become aware of the poet’s deep love toward nature through his lovely and vivid description about natural things with his figurative language.
What’s more, Wordsworth goes further to communicate his emotion and meaning by his thoughtful tone. The choose of the word “lonely” in “I wandered lonely as a cloud” instead of other words like carefree, leisure or jolly convey to us the poet’s depression and disconsolateness at the very beginning. But as he catches sight of daffodils stretching as far as the eyes can see and finds himself in the midst of nature, his loneliness turns into relaxation and joy. Thus the shift of the poet’s mood from sadness to happiness manifests the theme --- the great influence of nature upon human being.
