I have had strange whims,
I dare to tell them frankly
(However, only my lover can hear them):
What happened to me here.
Then my lover was radiant,
Like the color of a June rose:
At night, under the pale moonlight ,
I walked towards her hut.
I stared at the bright moon,
Walking through the vast Pingwu;
My horse quickened its pace,
On my beloved trails.
We came to the orchard, and then
climbed to a mountain.
At this time, the moon was slowly falling,
approaching the dew West roof.
I fell into a gentle dream -
A treasure given by nature!
My eyes are always fixed on the slowly falling moon.
My horse refuses to stop,
It gallops forward step by step:
I saw the bright moon, suddenly
Sink to the back of the hut.
What weird thoughts, crazy and confused,
will slip into the lover's mind!
"Oh my God!" I exclaimed to myself,
"What if Lucy dies!"
(Translated by Yang Deyu)
Appreciation
This poem and four other love poems by Wordsworth are usually called the "Lucy" poems (the order of these five poems is generally "I Have Had Strange Impulses" , "She lived on a deserted roadside", "I was a guest among strangers", "Three years of rain or shine, she grew up", "Sleep once covered my soul"), this group of ballads The love poem was written when the Wordsworth brothers and sisters were traveling in Germany from the winter of 1798 to the spring of 1799, and was included in the second edition of "Lyric Ballads". Who Lucy refers to has always been controversial in critics. Is it the poet's sister, Annette, the lover whom the poet briefly had a brief relationship with in France in his early years and then separated, or is it a lover of the poet at that time? No one can find sufficient evidence. We usually think that Lucy is an artistic image fictitious by the author, which projects the shadow of her sister and lover. It is a perfect combination of reality and imagination. The poet uses this set of poems to express the most common human problems, such as love and death. emotions and eternal philosophies.
This poem written in folk metrical style also has the simple drama and sense of story common in folk songs: A man in love rides a horse to meet his lover on a moonlit night, his mood is so joyful and bright. , seeing that he was about to arrive at his lover's house, he suddenly had the pessimistic thought that "his lover is dead." The first stanza of the poem begins with simple words, like the murmur of a heart-to-heart talk, and the mood that the poet is about to describe can only be understood and resonated by "passionate people". In the next three stanzas, the poet describes the scene of the lover riding the horse in a brisk way: He is so excited and joyful at the moment, full of beautiful expectations and fantasies about the upcoming tryst, and the missing lover is like a bright rose, exuding fragrance. ; Under the radiance of this mood, how beautiful and charming the moonlight night is, the bright moonlight, the vast grassland, the lover riding a horse through the orchard, climbing up the hill... The scenery and mood along the way are all... It is described by the poet as full of joyful and cheerful mood. The lines of the poem slowly unfold as the lover rides on horseback, giving the poem some concise drama and brisk speed.
There is a dominant image in the whole poem that is the "moon". The lover walks with the moon along the way, as if he is guided by the moonlight to go on a date with his lover, and the moon becomes the ** between him and his lover. * Some "lingxi", which seems to be somewhat similar to the words and phrases in our ancient Chinese poetry, "The bright moon is thousands of miles away to send lovesickness" or "I hope people will live long, thousands of miles away, the beauty of the moon". However, the "moon" here has a more symbolic meaning. The poet has been staring at the moon since he set off on horseback. From the time the moon was above his head, he saw the moon shining on Lucy's eaves and slowly descending, but suddenly the moon " Suddenly / sank behind the hut." When the lover saw this scene, he suddenly had the thought of death - the sudden change of rhythm completely reversed the previous light and joyful mood, and the happiness and joy of rushing to the date came to an abrupt end. The moon sets in the west is just a natural phenomenon, and the sensitive poet regards this natural law as a symbol of the impermanence of life: Lucy will also die helplessly and inescapably like the moon sets in the west. Here, the poet uses the image of the setting moon to materialize his personal emotional experience. The lover who was originally immersed in the joy of love suddenly has an unexpected shadow of death in his heart. In such a great sense of happiness, there will also be life. The worries and fears of impermanence, the fleeting nature of love, and the fleeting nature of happiness. After such a clear story, a sudden stroke of genius makes a love poem so philosophical, implicit and profound, which is evocative. "Love poems written so freshly and so suspense have rarely been seen before" ( Wang Zuoliang).
And this kind of panic, fear and worry in happiness is unique to all "passionate people", so the poet said that this story is only told to passionate people.
(Fan Pingping)