4

4

城市中的乌烟瘴气、拥挤、贫穷和丑陋，都是人们抱怨的地方。但是，即使是实施了清除空气污染法案，并且扫除了贫民窟，华兹华斯仍旧不会停止批评。因为，他关注的不仅是城市对我们健康构成的不良影响，更重要的是它危害我们的内在心灵。

Part of the complaint was directed towards the smoke, congestion, poverty and ugliness of cities, but clean-air bills and slum clearance would not by themselves have eradicated Wordsworth's critique. For it was the effect of cities on our souls, rather than on our health, that concerned him.

诗人谴责城市造成一系列窒息生命的情感，包括对我们所处社会地位的焦虑、对他人成就的羡慕，以及在陌生人面前炫耀的欲望。他直言不讳地表示，城市人毫无主见，只限于在街边或饭桌上道听途说、人云亦云。虽然他们生活舒适，却从未放弃追逐新鲜事物，即使他们什么都不缺、而幸福也根本与他们想要追逐的东西无关。另外，想在这样拥挤而焦躁的生活圈子里与他人建立真诚的情谊，要比在一个孤立的居住环境还要困难。对于自己在伦敦的生活华兹华斯曾作如下描述：“我始终对一件事感到不解：人们如何可能与隔壁的邻居在同一处生活，却如陌生人般，全然不知彼此的姓名？”

The poet accused cities of fostering a family of lifedestroying emotions: anxiety about our position in the social hierarchy, envy at the success of others, pride and a desire to shine in the eyes of strangers. City-dwellers had no perspective, he alleged; they were in thrall to what was spoken of in the street or at the dinner table. However well provided for, they had a relentless desire for new things, which they did not genuinely lack and on which happiness did not depend. And in this crowded, anxious sphere, it seemed harder than on an isolated homestead to begin sincere relationships with others. 'One thought baffled my understanding,' wrote Wordsworth of his residence in London, 'how men lived even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still strangers, and knowing not each other's names.'

我起程前往湖区的几个月前，在伦敦市中心（“这个人事喧哗的世界”——《序曲》）参加了一次聚会，体会到了上述的一些弊端，让我受尽折磨。我离开了会场，感到格外庆幸，抬头一看，头顶上出现的一大片乌云竟让我感到意外的轻松。虽然它乌黑一片，我却拿出小型照相机想把这个景观拍摄下来。我似乎体验到了华兹华斯诗作中形容的那股自然力量的救赎作用。这片云在几分钟前才飘到此处，它很快会随着强劲的西风飘逝而去。周遭办公楼的灯火，似乎点缀了这片云的边缘，散发一股颓废的橙色荧光，好比一个派对上全身挂满饰物的老翁。然而，它中央那一团花岗岩般的灰色，证明它是空气与海缓慢交流而成。它不久会飘过埃塞克斯的原野上空，掠过沼泽地和炼油厂，最后飘向那波涛汹涌的北海。

Myself afflicted by a few of these ills, I had, several months before my journey to the Lake District, emerged from a gathering held in the centre of London, that 'turbulent world/of men and things' (The Prelude) . Walking away from the venue, envious and worried about my position, I found myself deriving unexpected relief from the sight of a vast object overhead which, despite the darkness, I attempted to photograph with a pocket camera-and which served to bring home to me, as rarely before, the redemptive power of natural forces with which so much of Wordsworth's poetry was concerned. The cloud had floated over that part of the city only a few minutes before and, given the strong westerly wind, was not destined to remain above it long. The lights of surrounding offices lent to its edges an almost decadent fluorescent orange glow, making it look like a grave old man bedecked with party decorations, and yet its granite grey centre testified to its origins in the slow interplay of air and sea. Soon it would be over the fields of Essex, then the marshes and oil refineries, before heading out over the mutinous North Sea waves.

我一面望着这个奇观，一面走向公车站，我发现先前的焦虑退却了，心中浮现华兹华斯赞颂威尔士山谷的诗句：

Keeping my eyes fixed on the apparition while walking towards the bus stop, I felt my anxieties abate, and turned over in my mind lines that the cadeish poet had once composed in honour of a Welsh valley.