Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

                       by William Wordsworth

I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.
 

III

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;--
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy
Shepherd-boy!

IV

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:--
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
--But there's a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

VI

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

VIII

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul's immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,--
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest--
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

永生的信息

  威廉·華茲華斯

1
還記得當年，大地的千形萬態，
綠野，叢林，滔滔的流水，
在我看來
仿佛都呈現天國的明輝——
赫赫的榮光，夢境的新姿異彩。
可是如今呢，光景已不似當年：
不論白天或晚上，
不論我轉向何方，
當年所見的情境如今已不能重見。

2
虹霓顯而復隱，
玫瑰秀色宜人；
也空澄潔無云，
明月怡然環顧；
滿天星斗熒熒，
湖水清亮悅目；
旭日方升，金輝閃射；
然而，不論我身在何方，
我總覺得：大地的榮光已暗淡減負。

3
聽這些鳥兒，把歡樂之歌高唱，
瞧這些小小羔羊
應著鼓聲而蹦跳，
惟獨我，偏偏有愁思來到心間；
沉吟詠嘆了一番，把愁思排遣，
于是乎心神重旺。
懸崖上，似號角齊鳴，飛瀉著瀑布；
再不許愁思攪擾這大好時光；
聽回聲此起彼伏，響徹山岡，
清風睡醒了，從田野向我吹拂，
天地間喜氣盈盈；
海洋和陸地
都忘情作樂，似罪如迷，
鳥獸也以五月的豪情
把佳節良辰歡慶。
快樂的牧童！
高聲喊叫吧，讓我聽聽你快樂的叫聲！

4
我聽到你們一聲聲互相呼喚——
你們，幸福的生靈！我看到：
和你們一起，天庭也開顏喜笑；
我心中分享你們的狂歡，
我頭上帶著節日的花冠，
你們豐饒的福澤，我一一耳濡目染。
這樣的日子里怎容得愁悶！
溫馨的五月，明麗的清晨，
大地已裝扮一新，
四下里遠遠近近，
溪谷間，山坡下，
都有孩子們采集鮮花；
和煦的陽光照臨下界，
母親懷抱里嬰兒跳躍；
我聽著，聽著，滿心喜悅；
然而，有一顆老樹，在林間獨立，
有一片田園，在我的眼底，
它們低語著，談著已逝的往昔；
我腳下一株三色堇
也在把舊話重提：
到哪兒去了，那些幻異的光彩？
如今在哪兒，往日的榮光和夢境？

5
我們的誕生其實是入睡，是忘卻：
與軀體同來的魂魄——生命的星辰，
原先在異域安歇，
此時從遠方來臨；
并未把前緣淡忘無余，
并非赤條條身無寸縷，
我們披祥云，來自上帝身邊——
那本是我們的家園；
年幼時，天國的明輝閃耀在眼前；
當兒童漸浙成長，牢籠的陰影
便漸漸向他逼近，
然而那明輝，那流布明輝的光源，
他還能欣然望見：
少年時代，他每日由東向西，
也還能領悟造化的神奇，
幻異的光影依然
是他旅途的同伴；
及至他長大成人，明輝便泯滅
消溶于暗淡流光，平凡日月。

6
塵世自有她一套世俗的心愿，
她把世俗的歡娛羅列在膝前；
這保姆懷著絕不卑微的志向，
儼若有慈母心腸，
她竭盡權利，誘使世人
（她撫育的孩子，收留的居民）
忘掉昔年常見的神圣榮光，
忘掉昔年慣往的天國殿堂。

7
瞧這個孩子，沉浸在早年的歡樂里，
六歲的寶貝，小不點，玲瓏乖巧！
小手做出的玩意兒擺布在周遭，
母親的頻頻親吻叫他厭膩，
父親的灼灼目光向他閃耀！
他身邊有他勾畫的小小圖形，
那是他人生憧憬的零星片斷，
是他用新學的手藝描摹的場景：
一場慶典，或一席婚筵。
一次葬禮，或一番悼念；
這些，盤繞于他的心靈，
這些，他編成歌曲哼唱；
爾后，他另換新腔
去談論愛情，談論斗爭和事業；
過不了多久時光，，
他又把這些拋卻，
以新的豪情和歡悅，
這位小演員，把新的臺詞誦讀，
出入于“諧劇舞臺”，演各色人物
（全都是人生女神攜帶的臣仆）
直演到老邁龍鐘，瘋癱麻木，
仿佛他一生的業績
便是不停的模擬。

8
你的外在身形遠遠比不上
內在靈魂的宏廣；
卓越的哲人！保全了異稟英才，
你是盲人中間的明眸慧眼，
不聽也不說，諦視著永恒之海，
永恒的靈智時時在眼前閃現。
超凡的智者，有福的先知！
真理就在你心頭棲止
（為尋求真理，我們辛勞了一世，
尋得了，又在墓穴的幽冥里亡失）；
“永生”是凜然不容回避的存在，
它將你撫育，像陽光撫育萬物，
它將你蔭庇，像主人蔭庇奴仆；
在你看來，
墓穴無非是一張寂靜的眠床，
不知白晝，不見陽光，
讓我們在那兒沉思，在那兒等待。
孩子呵！如今你位于生命的高峰，
因保有天賦的自由而享有尊榮，
為什么你竟懵然與天恩作對，
為什么迫不及待地吁請“年歲”
早早把命定的重軛加在你身上？
快了！你的靈魂要熬受塵世的苦楚，
你的身心要承載習俗的重負，
像冰霜一樣凌厲，像生活一樣深廣！

9
幸而往昔的余燼里
還有些火星留下，
性靈還不曾忘記
匆匆一現的曇花！
對往昔歲月的追思，在我的心底
喚起了歷久不渝的贊美和謝意；
倒不是為了這些最該贊美的：
快樂和自由——孩子的天真信仰；
不論他是忙是閑，總想要騰飛的
新近在他心坎里形成的希望；
我歌唱、贊美、感謝，
并不是為了這些；
而是為了兒時對感官世界、
對世間萬物尋根究底的盤詰；
為了失落的、消亡的一切；
漂泊不定的旅人的困惑猶疑；
為了崇高的天性——在它面前
俗骨凡胎似罪犯驚惶戰栗；
為了早歲的情思，
為了迷蒙的往事——
它們，不論怎樣，
總是我們整個白晝的光源，
總是我們視野里主要的光焰；
有它們把我們扶持，把我們哺養，
我們喧囂擾攘的歲月便顯得
不過是永恒靜穆之中的片刻；
醒了的真理再不會亡失：
不論冷漠或愚癡，
成人或童稚，
世間與歡樂為敵的一切，
都休想把這些真理抹煞或磨滅！
因此，在天郎氣清的季節里，
我們雖幽居內地，
靈魂卻遠遠望得見永生之海：
這海水把我們送來此間，
一會兒便可以登臨彼岸，
看得見岸邊孩子們游玩比賽，
聽得見終古不息的海浪滾滾而來。

10
唱吧，鳥兒們，唱一曲歡樂之歌！
讓這些小小羊羔
應著鼓聲而蹦跳！
我們也想與你們同了，
會玩會唱的一群！
今天，你們從內心
嘗到了五月的歡欣！
盡管那一度熒煌耀眼的明輝
已經永遠從我的視野里消退，
盡管誰也休想再覓回
鮮花往日的榮光，綠草昔年的明媚；
我們卻無需悲痛，往昔的影響
仍有留存，要從中汲取力量：
留存于早歲萌生的同情心——
它既已萌生，邊永難消泯；
留存于撫慰心靈的思想——
它源于人類的苦難創傷；
留存于洞察死生的信念——
他來自富于哲理啟示的童年

11
哦！流泉，叢樹，綠野，青山！
我們之間的情誼永不會中斷！
你們的偉力深入我心靈的中心；
我雖舍棄了兒時的那種歡欣，
卻更加親近你們，受你們陶冶。
我喜愛奔流的溪澗，勝過當初
我腳步和它們同樣輕快的時節；
一日只始的晨光，純凈澄潔，
也依然引我愛慕；
對于審視過人間生死的雙眸，
落日周圍的霞光云影
色調也顯得莊嚴素凈；
又一段征途跨過了，又一曲凱旋高奏。
感謝人類的心靈哺養了我們，
感謝這心靈的歡愉、憂懼和溫存；
對于我，最平淡的野花也能啟發
最深沉的思緒——眼淚所不能表達。
（飛白 譯）

威廉·華茲華斯簡介

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