“露西组诗”之三

林水云风

（Untitled）➀

A slumber did my spirit seal；
I had no human fears；
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now，no force；
She neither hears nor sees；
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course，
With rocks，and stones，and trees.


➀这是“露西组诗”之一。原诗第1节用过去时式，第2节用现在时式，两节显然是今昔对比，第1节写露西生前，第2节写她死后。






无题

昔日，沉睡缄住心神，
我没有人间的担忧，
以为她是出神入化的精灵，
超然不觉尘世春秋。

如今，她已无力无气，
听不到，也看不着，
只是天天伴随着岩石树木
在与大地一同转绕。

叶如钢

欣赏好译。 网上找来一个版本供参考：

安眠封闭了我的灵魂

威廉•华兹华斯

安眠封闭了我的灵魂，
人世的恐惧忘却磬尽，
她已回归自然，
对岁月的感觉荡然无存。

纹丝不动，了无声息，
闭目不视，充耳不闻，
她陪着山脉，拌着木石，
追随大地昼夜飞驰的转轮。

叶如钢

Pick a Poem: Analysis of the Poem A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth
Posted by: Lori on: March 26, 2011
In: Uncategorized 1 Comment

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
by William Wordsworth
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

I chose this poem because of its ethereal sort of atmosphere. In here, William Wordsworth talks about the death of a female, probably a lover. He explains and describes her death and how he sees her in that state. The first two lines tell us about the author, or the speaker, the poetic voice through which the author speaks. “A slumber did my spirit seal” could mean that the speaker was in some sort of a lethargic state, as if he wasn’t living in reality but rather in fantasy, or in a twisted dream. Saying that he had “no human fears” could mean that he was a brave man, even in moments of tragedy. It could also mean that he had once been a brave, strong man, one that could not be easily broken until tragedy struck in the form of this woman’s death. In the lines
“She seemed a thing that could not feel,
The touch of earthly years”
he is referring to how she seems like she doesn’t age. Those lines hint at us that the woman has died (she cannot age for she is dead). Her death is only implied throughout the poem, never addressed directly, however in the second stanza it becomes clearer and almost painfully obvious that he is describing his possible lover’s death. The eerie, cryptic atmosphere created by the description serves to show the pain and agony that the author was suffering when writing the poem, which may also be the reason why he does not address the matter directly. This might be interpreted as her death being far too overwhelming for him to even mention it in a direct manner.  The lines
“No motion has she now, no force;”
tell us how she is lying still, how she is now an inanimate object, devoid of life. It can subtly imply that she had once been an energetic person, not one to stay put in one place for long. Addressing her current lack of senses can also imply that the woman might have been one to live life fully, using all of her senses to enjoy each day. He emphasizes how she can no longer enjoy the world through sight or sound by stating that she can no longer see nor hear; he also mentions how she is part of  the earth now:
“She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.”
The last two lines explain how her body has decomposed and has become one with earth, how she is now a part of nature. An interesting little detail in the last line is how he mentions “rocks” and “stones”, which are synonyms. Is it an intentional redundancy that emphasizes some aspect I’m missing? Maybe he wants to make it very clear that she is now as inanimate and lifeless as rocks are, for trees are inanimate but they are alive.
A very nice poem indeed, with a dark atmosphere, that somehow depicts beauty in a sort of creepy way.


I would like to add that the poem has been turned into an amazing song covered by the band Draconian. It might not suit all music tastes, however I believe it makes the poem justice with its Gothic darkness, for the poem is quite dark itself:

叶如钢

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Summary and Analysis
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“A slumber did my spirit steal,” by the English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), is one of the briefest of all the most famous poems in the English language. But the poem has also been the subject of some of the most intense critical debate. This text, perhaps because it is so short, has often been used as a test case in various critical arguments, especially arguments about the theoretical approach known as “deconstruction.” Much of the debate turns on how to interpret the poem’s final lines.

It seems best, however, to postpone discussion of the major debate until we have first examined some of the poem’s more straightforward features. Thus, no one can deny that the opening line strongly emphasizes alliteration: “A slumber did my spirit seal.” Likewise, assonance appears in “did” and in “spirit.” The opening line, then, seems particularly “musical” or “lyrical”: its sound effects are quite pronounced. The meaning of the line seems simple: the speaker was able to sleep soundly; he was at peace in a way that he will (according to some interpretations) still feel at peace by the end of the work. Other interpretations, however, suggest that by the end of the text his peace has been disrupted. In either case, the first line is significant in relation to the last line: the first line either foreshadows the peace of the conclusion or is contradicted by a concluding sense of pain.

The second line is especially intriguing, mostly because of the adjective “human.” Lack of fear is one thing, but why is the word “human” needed? Isn’t this word redundant? Aren’t all fears felt by humans “human fears”? Is “human” simply a synonym for “common”? If so, why doesn’t the speaker use the word “common” (which is, after all, the word commonly used to suggest “common”)? Is the speaker implying the existence some larger, less usual, more significant fears? Already, then, the poem begins to raise questions. Was the speaker merely clumsy in using the word “human,” or is something more interesting going on? Is the speaker, for instance, already beginning to emphasize some distinction—or at least some relation—between the human and the non-human? At this point in the poem, no certain answers to any of these questions seem possible.

An even more puzzling question arises in line 3 in the use of the word “She.” To whom or what does this word refer? Some readers assume that a real human being is the subject of this pronoun. Others assume that “She” refers to the mysterious...

叶如钢

这首诗的头两行似乎不好理解。 我找来了上面的分析作为参考。

叶如钢

Summary of A Slumber did my Spirit Seal by William WordsworthBy Abhishek Dey on April 13, 2015@ronniedeySHARE TWEET SHARE SHARE 0 COMMENTS

About the poet: William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet. Along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he helped to inaugurate the Romantic Age in English literature with the joint publication of their work entitled Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth’s magnum opus is generally thought to be The Prelude, a partly autobiographical poem of the years of his youth. He was also Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.



About the poem: “A Slumber did my Spirit Seal” was written by William Wordsworth in 1798, but it was not published until the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads. It is usually included as one of his Lucy poems, although it is the only poem of the series that does not mention her by name.

A Slumber did my Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth
The poem consists of 2 stanzas. Each of these stanzas is again made up of 4 lines. Hence, the entire poem consists of 8 lines in total.

1st stanza:

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

In this stanza, the narrator makes an admission. He says that he was in a state of unconsciousness, as if he were sleeping. Hence this is not a literal sleep that he is referring to, but a suspension as it were of a clear thought process. He was in such a trance that he did not want to acknowledge the fears that any human being has, specifically the fear of the death of one’s near and dear ones. In this case, the narrator’s near and dear one is Lucy, and he had never even considered the possibility of her death. Instead Lucy’s presence in the narrator’s life seemed to be eternal. He believed that the passing of the years had no effect on her at all. That is to say, he believed that Lucy did not even grow old with the passage of time.



2nd stanza:

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Between the first and the second stanza, a certain transition has happened that is not explicitly stated but is meant to be understood in the course of reading the poem. Hence by the beginning of this stanza, Lucy has actually passed away. The narrator then reacts to her death. He says that her body does not move anymore now. He can no longer experience her energetic presence in his life. Her eternal presence has in fact become an eternal absence. Her death is as sure as the daily rotation of the earth. And it is as if she has become incorporated into that very earth itself. Just as the rocks and the trees of the earth are liable to growth, development, death and decomposition, so is Lucy and the poet must come to accept this fact now.

Conclusion:



“A Slumber did my Spirit Seal” is one of the shortest poems ever written by Wordsworth. Most of his famous pieces, such as The Prelude, are in fact very long and descriptive in nature. However, this poem is remarkable for its brevity. And it is this brevity that accounts for its very beauty as well. The fact that all of the narrator’s fears, his refusal to accept death, and finally, his acceptance of it can be expressed in just eight lines is bound to awe and inspire us. If indeed Wordsworth is writing about his sister Dorothy, then this poem is also an evidence of his courage in accepting the situation of her terminal illness. In any case, one cannot help but admire Wordsworth for saying what all of us feel about the death of our loved ones in such an accurate and concise manner.

林水云风

叶如钢 发表于 2016-1-17 07:16
Summary of A Slumber did my Spirit Seal by William WordsworthBy Abhishek Dey on April 13, 2015@ronni ...

感谢叶版提供的资料。头两句当是表达“我”对人间冷暖的麻木不仁。后面之意，在“她死后”，“我”感到巨大的悲痛。

叶如钢

林水云风 发表于 2016-1-17 14:51
感谢叶版提供的资料。头两句当是表达“我”对人间冷暖的麻木不仁。后面之意，在“她死后”，“我”感到巨 ...

我的理解， 头两句是说作者原先忘掉了人会死这样的担忧， 而觉得她会永远有生命力。

林水云风

叶如钢 发表于 2016-1-17 14:56
我的理解， 头两句是说作者原先忘掉了人会死这样的担忧， 而觉得她会永远有生命力。

你的理解更有道理，我会再修改一下。