The Light of Winter 冬日之光

On March 16, 2002, when daffodils were swaying in the slowly warming wind of a North Carolina spring, I found myself in a snug hospital room with my wife and just-born daughter, only hours old, and I thought of ice.

A poem called Frost at Midnight, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was on my mind. In this verse, written in 1798, Coleridge sits near his infant son, Hartley, on a winter night in England. He recalls events from his troubled life, one fraught with chronic miseries ranging from melancholy to botched love to opiumaddiction to writer’s block. With a fervor usually reserved for prayer, the poet envisions a life for his son free of these problems—a vibrant, creative existence. Coleridge then asks nature itself to nurture his parental hope, invoking the potency of green summer but also, and especially, the winter’s “secret ministry of frost,” “quietly shining to the quiet moon.”

As a college professor, I had been teaching Frost at Midnight for year and had decided, soon after my wife became pregnant, to read the poem to commemorate our baby’s birth. And so I did recite the poem to our girl—we named her Una—hoping, like Coleridge, that her life would be perennially blessed by leaves and ice alike, by summery days but also by the chilly periods when she would most need strength.

What intrigued and moved me about the poem was its curious suggestion that gloom and loneliness might actually cultivate a sort of luminous affection. Forlorn most of his life, Coleridge was acutely aware of the bliss of human connection. Had he led a life free of suffering he might have never realized the wondrous fullness that comes during a father’s watch over his child’s midnight sleep.

To be hollow with longing is to be suffused with love. The thirsty person best knows water. Wounded hearts realize the essence of healing.

These are Coleridge’s exhilarating and strangely hopeful conclusions. They are optimistic because they envision a world in which suffering, inevitable and pervasive as gravity, is not meaningless but rather a source of wisdom. Even in the darkest hell, there persists a consoling light, a light that pulsates all the more forcibly against its murky background. I held this hope high the day my girl was born, knowing that she, no matter how adept, would necessarily undergo failure, frustration, los and confusion.

Maybe these challenging episodes would push her to explore her life with more honesty, to assess with more rigor her strengths and weaknesses, and thus to discover useful truths unavailable in her more contented moments.

Only months after that March day in the hospital, I sat in my study preparing for a class on Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and heard Una in another room gurgle and cool and then cry. I thought about how she would soon grow too old to play with me and then become too jaded to care about me and then leave home for somewhere else and only very seldom come back. I suddenly felt sadder than I ever had before. I felt the pain of losing her and the wonder of loving her. I adored her more for her imminent going. This wasn’t happiness, and it wasn’t pleasure. It was a more profound and durable experience, a moment encompassing both tragedy and euphoria, a child lost and a child found.

C. S. Lewis once claimed that the opening lines of Kubla Khan filled him with an unquenchable butrapturous yearning. He believed that such exultant aching is nothing other than joy: “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.”

The German term for this experience is, as Lewis tells us, Sehnsucht, and it describes precisely those instants when we are most alive: so sad we want to cry, so overjoyed that we weep. These antagonisticepiphanies, the inspirations of Coleridge’s genius, mark the transformative epochs of our lives.

I have been blessed by at least one such revelation, a marriage of verdure and frost. It keeps my fatherlyaffections as fresh as the spring, even though I know snow is never far. It holds me close to my girl as she walks into the cold distance. She is now seven years old and growing fast. She laughs as much as she cries.

　　2002年3月16日，北卡羅來(lái)納州的春天時(shí)節(jié)，水仙花在漸漸變暖的春風(fēng)中搖曳，我與妻子以及剛剛出生才幾個(gè)小時(shí)的女兒呆在一間溫暖的病房里。這時(shí)，我想到了冰雪。

　　我想起塞繆爾•泰勒•柯勒律治的詩(shī)《霜夜》。這首詩(shī)寫(xiě)于1798年，在英格蘭的一個(gè)冬夜，柯勒律治坐在他幼小的兒子哈特利身旁。他回憶起自己坎坷的一生——罹患憂(yōu)郁癥，情路失意跌撞，沉溺鴉片，寫(xiě)作路上又靈感枯竭——悲歌連連。帶著祈禱時(shí)的那股熱情，詩(shī)人寄望兒子的生活能免于這一切不幸——過(guò)上充滿(mǎn)活力且富有創(chuàng)造性的生活。接著，柯勒律治請(qǐng)求大自然呵護(hù)成全他對(duì)兒子的希望，懇求青蔥夏日，尤其是那“向著寧?kù)o的月亮靜靜閃光”的冬日“秘密使者嚴(yán)霜”賜予力量。

　　作為一名大學(xué)教授，我曾教授《霜夜》這首詩(shī)多年，而且早在妻子懷孕后不久就決定，要讀此詩(shī)來(lái)紀(jì)念我們孩子的出生。后來(lái)我的確為我們的女兒(我們給她起名叫尤納)朗誦了這首詩(shī)，如柯勒律治一樣，希望她能夠永遠(yuǎn)得到綠葉和寒冰的庇佑，無(wú)論是炎炎夏日還是最需要力量的寒冷時(shí)節(jié)，福佑都不斷降臨于她。

　　這首詩(shī)吸引并打動(dòng)我的是其奇特的寓意——陰郁愁苦和孤獨(dú)實(shí)際上可能孕育出一種光芒四射的愛(ài)意。大半生的孤凄讓柯勒律治深刻意識(shí)到人際相處溝通的可貴。如果一生沒(méi)經(jīng)歷困苦煎熬，他也許永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)體會(huì)到一位父親午夜看著自己孩子熟睡時(shí)那種奇妙的圓滿(mǎn)感。

　　徒有熱望的心靈也是最充滿(mǎn)愛(ài)意的?？诳实娜俗钪浪淖涛?。受傷的心靈了解療傷的真諦。

　　這些是柯勒律治的結(jié)論，它們振奮人心，新奇而滿(mǎn)載希望。這些論調(diào)是樂(lè)觀的，因?yàn)樵谄溲壑?，世上的苦難，雖然如同地心引力一般，無(wú)處不在也無(wú)從逃避，但并非毫無(wú)意義，其實(shí)在是智慧的源泉。即使在最黑暗的地獄，總尚存一縷慰藉的光芒，在陰暗背景的映襯下它跳動(dòng)得愈加有力。在女兒出生那天我滿(mǎn)懷這種希冀——知道無(wú)論她多有能耐，都必然會(huì)遭遇失敗、挫折、損失和迷惘。

　　也許這些具有挑戰(zhàn)性的“插曲”會(huì)推動(dòng)她抱著一顆更赤誠(chéng)的心去探索自己的人生，更加嚴(yán)格地評(píng)估自己的長(zhǎng)處和弱點(diǎn)，從而發(fā)掘到一些在更為順心滿(mǎn)意時(shí)所無(wú)法獲得的有用真理。

　　那個(gè)三月里在醫(yī)院度過(guò)那天后，才過(guò)了幾個(gè)月，我坐在書(shū)房里為一堂有關(guān)柯勒律治的《忽必烈汗》的課做準(zhǔn)備，聽(tīng)到尤納在另外一個(gè)房間里格格傻笑，咿呀亂語(yǔ)，又大聲哭喊。我想到她很快就會(huì)長(zhǎng)大，不再與我玩耍;接著會(huì)忙碌得無(wú)暇關(guān)心我，并離家去往異鄉(xiāng)，幾乎很少回來(lái)，我突然感到一種從未有過(guò)的悲哀。我感到失去她的痛苦，也感受到對(duì)她的奇妙?lèi)?ài)意。因?yàn)樗芸炀蜁?huì)離開(kāi)我身邊，我更愛(ài)她了。這不是喜悅，也不是快樂(lè)。這是一種更加深刻和持久的感受，孩子失去后又尋回那種悲喜交集的瞬間。

　　C•S•劉易斯曾經(jīng)聲稱(chēng)，《忽必烈汗》一詩(shī)的首行字句曾經(jīng)給予他一種難以抑制而又欣喜異常的渴望。他認(rèn)為，這種歡欣鼓舞的痛苦就是喜悅：“未得到滿(mǎn)足的欲望比任何滿(mǎn)足感更令人心馳神往。”

　　正如劉易斯所告訴我們的，描述這種體驗(yàn)的德語(yǔ)單詞是“Sehnsucht”，它恰恰是描述了我們生活的大部分瞬間：悲傷得想哭，狂喜得落淚。這些截然相反的感受——來(lái)源于柯勒律治的天才靈感——記錄著我們?nèi)松總€(gè)重要的轉(zhuǎn)變時(shí)刻。

　　我也有幸至少悟到這么一種啟示，一種青蔥美好和霜寒陰郁相生相融的感悟。這使我能把父愛(ài)保持得如春天般生機(jī)勃勃，即使我知道雪從不遙遠(yuǎn)。在女兒走向冰冷的遠(yuǎn)方時(shí)，這份感悟能使我與她保持親密。我的女兒現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)7歲，正在快速成長(zhǎng)。她經(jīng)常笑，也經(jīng)?？?。