The Poetry of Autumn秋天的诗歌

安妮·芬奇 罗怀宇

Forget spring. Fall is the season for poetry.

忘掉春天吧，秋天才是詩的季节。

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.

“大地之诗永不停息。”约翰·济慈曾写道。然而，这位秋天的典范诗人，虽然自己的生命正随他绚烂的光华同逝，但对这个季节的消逝却保持着细腻鲜活的敏锐。他的秋在沉睡，脸颊嫣红，头发凌乱，显现出初露的秋意带来的感官丰富性，其生动形象就如同莎士比亚商籁诗第七十三首中黄叶烘托出的凄清壮丽的晚秋。然而，这两首诗都蕴含些许对立的色调，如此微妙而更显细腻：商籁诗中不言而喻的情欲和颂歌中不祥之兆的暗示（秋虫的哀号，燕子的会聚）处理得如此精细，几乎让人难以觉察。

正是由于这样一种对二元性的敏感，秋天的诗歌才更倾向于含蓄以及广大。试问什么样的诗人或诗歌爱好者能抗拒这样一个死亡和美丽携手同行的时节？陈腐的诗人好为伤春之咏，然其所吟无非鸟鸣花开一类的仿拟之诗。米莱在他的《秋之寂灭》一诗末尾给出了这样的回应：“美已变得僵硬，她凝望苍穹！ / 哦，秋啊！秋——春之于我何足道哉？”

咏秋诗宏大之证据所在多有，至少在浪漫主义传统下的英语文学中是如此：雪莱的《西风颂》、济慈的《秋颂》、霍普金斯的《春与秋》、叶芝的《柯尔庄园的野天鹅》、希尔达·杜利特尔的《果园》、史蒂文斯的《秋天的晨曦》、布鲁克斯的《贝弗利山，芝加哥》，等等。狄金森似乎相信秋天与诗歌之间存在必然的联系，当她写下“除却诗人歌颂的秋天/也有几个平淡的日子”的诗行时，仿佛秋天在她心中是诗歌的一个标准题材，就如同春天之于我们。她的《狂野之夜，狂夜！》——更不必说那首异曲同工的古代之作《哦，西风》——很可能就是从深秋获得灵感，或者说从里尔克的情愫中获得灵感：“谁此时无家可归，无须再筑庇所;谁如今孤身独居，都将永处孑境。”

里尔克的诗带有传统咏秋诗些许的肃杀气质，带有对于这个季节——爱丽丝·卡里彻底厌弃的“枯萎”世界——的那种凄切或苦涩的哀悼。而正是秋天的这一侧面让沃尔特·德拉梅尔在那首《秋天》为题的诗中陷入了魔咒般的痴迷：

凉风起处，曾开玫瑰;

冷雨飘零，昔为芳菲……

君音不闻，凄风阵阵;

我心不复，涕泪沾襟……

它让保尔·魏尔伦听到了那种悠悠不绝于耳的啜泣声，或许最残忍的是，让亚当·扎加耶夫斯基在面对秋天“无情的光焰/和气息”的伟力时陷入了一种政治上的绝望。

在这一主题范畴的另一端，我们能找到为数不多的几首雄健、快乐的咏秋诗。颇为有趣的是，这些诗更常见于美国诗人甚于英国诗人。之所以有这种失衡，会不会只是因为美国的树木更茂盛、更富于风景之美？写秋之快意的诗歌中，保罗·劳伦斯·邓巴的《欢乐的秋天》可谓最成功之一，这首诗有意识地挑战了它不以为然的“肃穆”传统：

不过是场闹剧——他们讲的这些故事，

什么风儿在叹息，

什么田野和山谷上飘荡着哀吟，

只因这一年要寿终正寝。

艾米莉·狄金森的《晨光温柔胜往日》或许不是一首典型的狄金森的诗，但却让人回味无穷。惠特曼安详地沐浴着秋日暖阳，感受着秋天的小溪流奔向永恒的海洋。朗费罗写《秋》这首充满冷峻欢乐的诗时不在最佳状态，但他用史诗《伊凡吉琳》第二部宏阔的开头做了弥补，这首诗现在虽被低估但仍然颇具可读性，那个开头是这样的：

现在这个季节已回来，夜晚变得更冷更漫长，

不断远离的太阳也已退入天蝎宫。

候鸟从铅灰色的天空飞过，从冰封的，

荒凉的北部海湾飞向热带的海岛沙滩。

庄稼已收割完成，九月呼啸的狂风

让林树摇曳起伏，就像雅各在和天使摔跤。

然而，这种或则伤怀或则欢欣的诗实为例外;咏秋诗真正的傳统是一种矛盾。除了诗歌，除了秋天，矛盾还能在其他地方找到适宜的栖身之所吗？从莎士比亚的商籁诗到济慈的颂歌以及后世的诸多佳作，最脍炙人口的咏秋诗基本上都体现了华莱士·史蒂文斯所谓的“在冬天的裂隙燃起夏日的稻草”，取得丰饶与衰败之间的平衡——弗罗斯特在他的《摘苹果之后》中将这一平衡运用到了极致：

变得硕大的苹果时隐时现，

一头是梗，一头是花，

每个黄褐的斑点清晰可见。

……我已筋疲力尽，

虽然这是我想要的好收成。

我想，这种矛盾性才是秋天的精髓，它正是我们一些诗人力有未逮之处，也是秋天深受那么多人喜爱的原因所在。正是这种难以名状的迷惑激发起华莱士·史蒂文斯“在秋夜湿漉道路上的阵阵情思”，也让阿齐博尔德·麦克利什将秋天唤作“人类的季节”。这个时候，我们或许更能确切体会玛丽·金兹在评论里尔克的《秋日》时缘何将秋天描述为“失落的盛放，……衰减至外壳的成熟”。而在这一点上，秋天又变得像诗歌一样：虽然它可能会让我们更加深切地意识到自己的孤独，但它也能帮助我们体会到分享彼此那份孤独的兴奋感。借用松尾芭蕉的诗句：

已是深秋

我的邻居

他过得如何，我好奇。 □

[译文系教育部人文社科项目成果（16YJC752015）]

（译者单位：北京语言大学）