The Poem
[This was written immediately after my return from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade of our own country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrasted with the quiet, and I may say the desolation, that the Revolution had produced in France. This must be borne in mind, or else the reader may think that in this and the succeeding Sonnets I have exaggerated the mischief engendered and fostered among us by undisturbed wealth. It would not be easy to conceive with what a depth of feeling I entered into the struggle carried on by the Spaniards for their deliverance from the usurped power of the French. Many times have I gone from Allan Bank in Grasmere Vale, where we were then residing, to the top of Raise-gap, as it is called, so late as two o'clock in the morning, to meet the carrier bringing the newspapers from Keswick. Imperfect traces of the state of mind in which I then was may be found in my tract on the Convention of Cintra, as well as in these Sonnets.—I. F.]
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Hỡi Bạn! Tôi chẳng biết nhìn về đâu
Để tìm khuây khỏa, khi lòng trĩu nặng,
Nghĩ rằng đời nay chỉ cốt bề ngoài làm hàng mã,
Công phu hèn mọn của thợ thủ công, đầu bếp, hay kẻ chăn ngựa!
—Chúng ta cứ phải lấp lánh tựa dòng suối dưới nắng mai
Giữa trời quang, bằng không sẽ là bất hạnh:
Kẻ giàu sang nhất trong ta là kẻ tuyệt vời nhất:
Chẳng còn sự vĩ đại nào trong tự nhiên hay trong sách vở
Còn làm ta say đắm. Cướp bóc, tham lam, phung phí,
Đó chính là thói cuồng tín; và ta tôn thờ những điều ấy:
Lối sống giản dị và tư tưởng cao đẹp nay không còn nữa;
Vẻ đẹp bình dị của chính nghĩa thuở xưa
Đã lùi vào dĩ vãng; bình yên của ta, sự ngây thơ đầy sợ hãi,
Cùng tôn giáo thanh tao hơi thở luật gia đình.
Note
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1
A
B
5
10
Variant 1:
1807
O thou proud City! which way shall I look
1838
The text of 1840 returns to that of 1807.
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Footnote A:
The "Friend" was Coleridge. In the original MS. it stands
"Coleridge! I know not," etc. Wordsworth changed it in the proof
stage.—Ed.
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Footnote B:
Compare—in Hartley Coleridge's Lives of Distinguished
Northerners—what is said of this sonnet, in his life of Anne
Clifford, where the passing cynicism of Wordsworth's poem is pointed
out.—Ed.
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Note:
Wordsworth stayed in London from August 30th to September 22nd 1802.—Ed.
Contents 1802
Main Contents
