安妮·芬奇 羅懷宇

Forget spring. Fall is the season for poetry.

忘掉春天吧，秋天才是詩的季節(jié)。

By Annie Finch

“The poetry of earth is never dead，” wrote John Keats， and yet that quintessential poet of autumn， his own life fading as the colors of his glory blazed and flew， was exquisitely alive to the season’s dying. His sleeping Autumn， cheeks flushed and hair awry， personifies the sensual richness of the early part of the season as iconically as the yellow leaves of Shakespeare’s Sonnet LXXIII embody the forlorn grandeur of the late. And yet both of these poems contain the tinge of their opposites， more exquisite for being so subtle： the unspoken sexual passion in the sonnet and the hint of the ominous in the ode （the wailing of the bugs， the swallows gathering） are so delicate they are barely there.

Through just this kind of sensitivity to duality， the poetry of autumn tends to ambiguity—and to greatness. What poet or lover of poetry could resist， now， when death and beauty are afoot？ Together？ The stereotypical poet writes of spring; the odds are that any parody of poetry will involve twittering and budding. But Millay answers， from the end of “The Death of Autumn”： “Beauty stiffened， staring up at the sky！ / Oh， Autumn！ Autumn—What is the Spring to me？”

The evidence for the greatness of autumn poetry， at least in the Romantic tradition in English， is everywhere： Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind，” Keats’s “To Autumn，” Hopkins’s “Spring and Fall，” Yeats’s “The Wild Swans at Coole，” H.D.’s “Orchard，” Stevens’s “The Auroras of Autumn，” Brooks’s “Beverly Hills， Chicago.” Dickinson seemed to take the connection between poetry and autumn for granted， writing “Besides the Autumn poets sing / a few prosaic days” as if it were as standard a subject for poetry in her mind as spring is in ours. It seems likely that her own “Wild nights—Wild nights！，” not to mention its ancient ancestor， “O Western Wind，” was inspired by late autumn， by the kind of mood when Rilke wrote， “Whoever’s homeless now， will build no shelter; / who lives alone will live indefinitely so.”

Rilke’s poem partakes of the tradition of relentless autumn poems， those sad or bitter mournings of the season， the “withered” world on which Alice Cary so utterly turns her back. This is the aspect of autumn that drives Walter de la Mare， in “Autumn，”1 to spell-like obsession：

There is a wind where the rose was;

Cold rain where sweet grass was…

Sad winds where your voice was;

Tears， tears where my heart was…

It drives Paul Verlaine to hear such long long sobs， and most brutally of all perhaps， Adam Zagajewski to political despair at the power of autumn “merciless in her blaze/and her breath.”

On the other end of the spectrum are the few stalwart， happy autumn poems. These seem， interestingly enough， more common among American than among English poets. Could it be the sheer beauty of a more heavily wooded landscape that tips the balance？ Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Merry Autumn，” one of the most successful happy autumn poems， consciously calls up the “solemn” tradition it rejects：

It’s all a farce，—these tales they tell

About the breezes sighing，

And moans astir o’er field and dell，

Because the year is dying.

Emily Dickinson’s “The morns are meeker than they were，” uncharacteristic of her as it may be， is utterly memorable， and Whitman basks in autumn with benign acceptance， feeling its rivulets flowing towards an eternal ocean. Longfellow， not at his best in his ruthlessly cheerful poem “Autumn，” more than makes up for it at the gorgeous beginning of Book 2 of his now-underappreciated， but still highly readable， epic “Evangeline”：

Now had the season returned， when the nights grow colder and longer，

And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.

Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air， from the ice-bound，

Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands.

Harvests were gathered in; and wild with the winds of September

Wrestled the trees of the forest， as Jacob of old with the angel.

But poems of lament or celebration are the exceptions; the real tradition of the poetry of autumn is the paradoxical tradition. Where does paradox find its proper home but in poetry， and in autumn？ From Shakespeare’s sonnet to Keats’s ode and far beyond， much of the most memorable autumn poetry embraces what Stevens called “the blaze of summer straw in winter’s nick，” that balance between fecundity and decay which Frost addresses with such excruciating specificity in “After Apple-Picking”：

Magnified apples appear and disappear，

Stem end and blossom end，

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

… I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

This paradox， I think， is the pith of autumn， the part that some of us just can’t get enough of， the reason autumn is so many people’s favorite season. This is the ineffable puzzle that inspires Stevens’s “gusty emotions on wet roads on autumn nights” and leads Archibald MacLeish to call autumn “the human season.” This is the time when， perhaps， we are all looking to feel more accurately what Mary Kinzie， in her commentary on Rilke’s “Day in Autumn，” described as “the flowering of loss， … the ripening of diminishment into husk and hull.” And in this， autumn is again like poetry： though it may help us to notice more deeply how we are alone， it can also help us to feel the excitement of sharing that solitude with each other. In the words of Basho，

It is deep autumn

My neighbor

How does he live， I wonder.

“大地之詩永不停息?！奔s翰·濟(jì)慈曾寫道。然而，這位秋天的典范詩人，雖然自己的生命正隨他絢爛的光華同逝，但對這個季節(jié)的消逝卻保持著細(xì)膩鮮活的敏銳。他的秋在沉睡，臉頰嫣紅，頭發(fā)凌亂，顯現(xiàn)出初露的秋意帶來的感官豐富性，其生動形象就如同莎士比亞商籟詩第七十三首中黃葉烘托出的凄清壯麗的晚秋。然而，這兩首詩都蘊(yùn)含些許對立的色調(diào)，如此微妙而更顯細(xì)膩：商籟詩中不言而喻的情欲和頌歌中不祥之兆的暗示（秋蟲的哀號，燕子的會聚）處理得如此精細(xì)，幾乎讓人難以覺察。

正是由于這樣一種對二元性的敏感，秋天的詩歌才更傾向于含蓄以及廣大。試問什么樣的詩人或詩歌愛好者能抗拒這樣一個死亡和美麗攜手同行的時節(jié)？陳腐的詩人好為傷春之詠，然其所吟無非鳥鳴花開一類的仿擬之詩。米萊在他的《秋之寂滅》一詩末尾給出了這樣的回應(yīng)：“美已變得僵硬，她凝望蒼穹！ / 哦，秋啊！秋——春之于我何足道哉？”

詠秋詩宏大之證據(jù)所在多有，至少在浪漫主義傳統(tǒng)下的英語文學(xué)中是如此：雪萊的《西風(fēng)頌》、濟(jì)慈的《秋頌》、霍普金斯的《春與秋》、葉芝的《柯爾莊園的野天鵝》、希爾達(dá)·杜利特爾的《果園》、史蒂文斯的《秋天的晨曦》、布魯克斯的《貝弗利山，芝加哥》，等等。狄金森似乎相信秋天與詩歌之間存在必然的聯(lián)系，當(dāng)她寫下“除卻詩人歌頌的秋天/也有幾個平淡的日子”的詩行時，仿佛秋天在她心中是詩歌的一個標(biāo)準(zhǔn)題材，就如同春天之于我們。她的《狂野之夜，狂夜！》——更不必說那首異曲同工的古代之作《哦，西風(fēng)》——很可能就是從深秋獲得靈感，或者說從里爾克的情愫中獲得靈感：“誰此時無家可歸，無須再筑庇所;誰如今孤身獨(dú)居，都將永處孑境?！?/p>

里爾克的詩帶有傳統(tǒng)詠秋詩些許的肅殺氣質(zhì)，帶有對于這個季節(jié)——愛麗絲·卡里徹底厭棄的“枯萎”世界——的那種凄切或苦澀的哀悼。而正是秋天的這一側(cè)面讓沃爾特·德拉梅爾在那首《秋天》為題的詩中陷入了魔咒般的癡迷：

涼風(fēng)起處，曾開玫瑰;

冷雨飄零，昔為芳菲……

君音不聞，凄風(fēng)陣陣;

我心不復(fù)，涕淚沾襟……

它讓保爾·魏爾倫聽到了那種悠悠不絕于耳的啜泣聲，或許最殘忍的是，讓亞當(dāng)·扎加耶夫斯基在面對秋天“無情的光焰/和氣息”的偉力時陷入了一種政治上的絕望。

在這一主題范疇的另一端，我們能找到為數(shù)不多的幾首雄健、快樂的詠秋詩。頗為有趣的是，這些詩更常見于美國詩人甚于英國詩人。之所以有這種失衡，會不會只是因?yàn)槊绹臉淠靖?、更富于風(fēng)景之美？寫秋之快意的詩歌中，保羅·勞倫斯·鄧巴的《歡樂的秋天》可謂最成功之一，這首詩有意識地挑戰(zhàn)了它不以為然的“肅穆”傳統(tǒng)：

不過是場鬧劇——他們講的這些故事，

什么風(fēng)兒在嘆息，

什么田野和山谷上飄蕩著哀吟，

只因這一年要壽終正寢。

艾米莉·狄金森的《晨光溫柔勝往日》或許不是一首典型的狄金森的詩，但卻讓人回味無窮?；萏芈苍?shù)劂逶≈锶张枺惺苤锾斓男∠鞅枷蛴篮愕暮Ｑ?。朗費(fèi)羅寫《秋》這首充滿冷峻歡樂的詩時不在最佳狀態(tài)，但他用史詩《伊凡吉琳》第二部宏闊的開頭做了彌補(bǔ)，這首詩現(xiàn)在雖被低估但仍然頗具可讀性，那個開頭是這樣的：

現(xiàn)在這個季節(jié)已回來，夜晚變得更冷更漫長，

不斷遠(yuǎn)離的太陽也已退入天蝎宮。

候鳥從鉛灰色的天空飛過，從冰封的，

荒涼的北部海灣飛向熱帶的海島沙灘。

莊稼已收割完成，九月呼嘯的狂風(fēng)

讓林樹搖曳起伏，就像雅各在和天使摔跤。

然而，這種或則傷懷或則歡欣的詩實(shí)為例外;詠秋詩真正的傳統(tǒng)是一種矛盾。除了詩歌，除了秋天，矛盾還能在其他地方找到適宜的棲身之所嗎？從莎士比亞的商籟詩到濟(jì)慈的頌歌以及后世的諸多佳作，最膾炙人口的詠秋詩基本上都體現(xiàn)了華萊士·史蒂文斯所謂的“在冬天的裂隙燃起夏日的稻草”，取得豐饒與衰敗之間的平衡——弗羅斯特在他的《摘蘋果之后》中將這一平衡運(yùn)用到了極致：

變得碩大的蘋果時隱時現(xiàn)，

一頭是梗，一頭是花，

每個黃褐的斑點(diǎn)清晰可見。

……我已筋疲力盡，

雖然這是我想要的好收成。

我想，這種矛盾性才是秋天的精髓，它正是我們一些詩人力有未逮之處，也是秋天深受那么多人喜愛的原因所在。正是這種難以名狀的迷惑激發(fā)起華萊士·史蒂文斯“在秋夜?jié)皲醯缆飞系年囮嚽樗肌?，也讓阿齊博爾德·麥克利什將秋天喚作“人類的季節(jié)”。這個時候，我們或許更能確切體會瑪麗·金茲在評論里爾克的《秋日》時緣何將秋天描述為“失落的盛放，……衰減至外殼的成熟”。而在這一點(diǎn)上，秋天又變得像詩歌一樣：雖然它可能會讓我們更加深切地意識到自己的孤獨(dú)，但它也能幫助我們體會到分享彼此那份孤獨(dú)的興奮感。借用松尾芭蕉的詩句：

已是深秋

我的鄰居

他過得如何，我好奇。 □

[譯文系教育部人文社科項目成果（16YJC752015）]

（譯者單位：北京語言大學(xué)）