To a Distant Friend

William Wordsworth

华兹华斯与柯尔律治(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)、骚塞(Robert Southey)同被称为“湖畔派”诗人(Lake Poets)。他们也是英国文学中最早出现的浪漫主义作家。他们喜爱大自然，描写宗法制农村生活，厌恶资本主义的城市文明和冷酷的金钱关系，他们远离城市，隐居在昆布兰湖区和格拉斯米尔湖区，由此得名“湖畔派”。

湖畔派”三诗人中成就最高者为华兹华斯。他于1789年和柯勒律治合作发表了《抒情歌谣集》，华兹华斯和柯尔律治从拥护法国革命变成反对,于是前者寄情山水,在大自然里找慰藉;后者神游异域和古代，以梦境为归宿。两人的诗歌合集,题名《抒情歌谣集》,于1798年出版，《抒情歌谣集》宣告了浪漫主义新诗的诞生。两年后再版，华兹华斯加了一个长序，在这篇序中，华兹华斯详细阐述了他的浪漫主义文学主张，主张以平民的语言抒写平民的事物、思想与感情，被誉为浪漫主义诗歌的宣言。

Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant

Of such weak fiber that the treacherous air

Of absence withers what was once so fair?

Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?

Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant,

Bound to thy service with unceasing care—

The mind’s lest generous wish a mendicant

For nought but what thy happiness could spare.

Speak!—though soft warm heart, once free to hold

A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,

Be left more desolate, more dreary cold

Than a foreasaken bird’s-nest fill’d with snow

‘Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine—

Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!