把大海當(dāng)作知音,當(dāng)作既不能擺脫的心中的哈姆雷特又不能使之擁有一刻平靜的累爾提斯,這是現(xiàn)代人的理念。拜倫和雪萊在詩中創(chuàng)造了大海;海涅把大海當(dāng)作知音,向它訴說自己的愛情;華茲華斯將大海當(dāng)作道德感化的力量;伯朗寧一反詩人們的常態(tài),以自己的方式熱愛著大海;在馬休·阿諾德心中,大海是命運(yùn)之聲,傳達(dá)的是失意和絕望;雨果與大海交流就像跟謙卑的朋友說話一樣,發(fā)出的高談闊論是前所未有的。那些抒情詩人們也都無不如此……
但唯獨(dú)在朗費(fèi)羅心中,大海呈現(xiàn)給他的是康特·阿諾德斯眼中那威武的戰(zhàn)艦;聽到的只有水手們豪放而美妙的歌聲,這歌聲讓人無法抗拒,使人久久難以忘懷。隨后他又發(fā)現(xiàn)了老怪物的秘密,這是他充滿魅力的世界,是他的迷人所在,是他音樂中最富人性的音符,更是對人類心靈深處的撫摩。于是,他在大海詩人中贏得了獨(dú)有的地位。在他們大多數(shù)人心目中,大海是至高無上的自我:我就是大海,大海就是我,我心中的自我與他人一樣坦率真誠。但朗費(fèi)羅是人類真情的代言人,激勵他吐露真言的是一種陌生而美妙的心有靈犀一點(diǎn)通的精神,這種精神早在第一個水手駕駛著第一艘船來到這陌生而又舛驁不馴的大海的世界時(shí)就已確立了,同時(shí)也確立了人與大海間永恒的感情基調(diào)。在他心中,大海是海員與船只的天地。于是,在他的詩篇中,聽得到索具的吱吱聲,看得見張滿風(fēng)的嘩嘩作響的白色風(fēng)帆,嗅得出岸邊送來的味道,還有那大麻和焦油的氣味,感受到吹在臉上的來自家鄉(xiāng)的和風(fēng)。老船員們是白色的眼珠,青銅色的臉,他們戴著銀戒指,系上鮮艷的手絹,向你講述著一個個難忘而動人、深邃而不可言傳的故事。他在港口停下,來到碼頭,徘徊在船只間,傾聽水手們憂郁的歌聲,凝視著船工斧頭下飛濺的木塊,呼吸著瀝青鍋中沸騰著、冒出煙霧的油味。于是他開始唱歌,唱起了康特·阿諾德斯情歌的變奏曲,世人們傾聽著,人們的心也隨著歌聲而跳動。
The ocean as confidant, a Laertes that can neither avoid his Hamlets nor bid them hold their peace, is a modern invention. Byron and Shelley discovered it; Heine took it into his confidence, and told it the story of hi loves; Wodsworth made it a moral influence; Browning loved it in his way, but his way was not often the poet's; to Matthew Arnold it was the voice of destiny, and its message of despair; Hugo conferred with it as with an humble friend, and uttered such lofty things over it as are rarely heard upon the lips of man. And so with living lyrists each after his kind...
But to Longfellow alone was it given to see that stately galley which Count Arnaldos saw; his only to hear the steersman singing that wild and wondrous song which none that hears it can resist, and none that has heard it may forget. Then did he learn the old monster's secretthe word of his charm, the core of his mystery, the human note in his music, the quality of his influence upon the heart and the mind of man; and then did he win himself a place apart among seapoets. With the most of htem it is a case of Ego et rex meus. It is I and sea, and my egoism is as valiant and as vocal as the other's. but Longfellow is the spokesman of a confraternity; what thrills him to utterance is the spirit of that strange and beautiful freemasonry established as long as long ago as when the first sailor steered the first keel out into the unknown, irresistible waterworld, and so established the foundations of the eternal brotherhood of man with ocean. To him the sea is a place of mariners and ships. In his verse the rigging creaks, the white sail fills and crackles, there are blown smells of pine and hemp and tar; you catch the home wind on your cheeks; and old shipmen, their eyeballs white in their bronzed faces, with silver rings and gaudy handkerchiefs, come in and tell you moving stories of the immemorial, incommunicable deep. He abides in a port; he goes down to the docks, and loiters among the galiots and brigantines; he hears the melancholy song of the chantymen; he sees the chips flying under the shipwright's adze; he smells the pitch that smokes and bubbles in the caldron. And straightway he falls to singing his variation on the ballad of Count Arnaldos; and the world listens, for its heart beats in his song.