雲雀飛翔

George Meredith, 1828-1909

雲雀飛上天空開始盤旋，

撒落如銀鈴般的歌聲，

接連不斷地響徹雲霄，
囀聲、哨聲與滑音、抖音，
不絕於耳地迴響天空，
充滿了對大地的愛。

在冉冉飛翔中，
我們的山谷變成雲雀的金杯，
牠從那兒溢出的美酒，
讓我們與牠一同飛翔。
當空氣的圓輪消失在光中，
只剩下虛幻的歌聲。

─喬治‧馬里帝斯《雲雀飛翔》─

英國作曲家佛漢‧威廉士(Ralph Vaughan Williams,

Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872-1958

1872-1958) 一生致力採集英國各地民謠，並消化為自己獨特的音樂語言，為國民樂派代表性音樂家。佛漢‧威廉士偶然讀到英國維多莉亞時期著名小說家與詩人喬治‧馬里帝斯(George Meredith, 1828-1909)的122行詩作「雲雀飛翔(The Lark Ascending)」，並於西元1914年嚐試將之音樂化，但因同年八月第一次世界大戰爆發，當時42歲的佛漢‧威廉士也被徵召入伍，曲子便以草稿的形式被擱置，直到戰後才加以修改並出版，並呈獻給小提琴家瑪莉‧霍爾(Marie Hall, 1884-1959)。

1920年，以小提琴為主奏的《雲雀飛翔(The Lark Ascending》首先以鋼琴伴奏的版本，由瑪莉‧霍爾進行首演，而1921年6月14日便在鮑爾特(Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, 1889-1983)的指揮下，於倫敦發表管絃樂團的伴奏版本，當時時代雜誌(The Times)曾評論此曲： 「作品顯示出對現在或過去習慣的極度漠視。它朝著自己的夢想前進(It showed supreme disregard for the ways of today or yesterday. It dreamed itself along)」。而此曲也擁有「為小提琴與管絃樂團所寫的浪漫曲」之副題，另，佛漢‧威廉士也在樂譜首頁附上「雲雀飛翔」一詩開頭數句。



《雲雀飛翔》一曲藉由小提琴所代表的雲雀展翅高飛，彷彿描繪出英國的田園風景畫，抒情的曲風再加上恬適的性格，令人有置身於大自然，忘卻一切俗世凡囂之感，而曲中類似東方風味的五聲音階，更讓人聯想到中國文人雅士的豁達寡欲，藉物詠情，以詩詞書畫來表白心跡，寄情於山水並非忘卻世間人情，而是將之昇華為對天地萬物的大愛。

人生總無法避免憂煩紛擾，然而心緒煩躁時不仿一聽《雲雀飛翔》，將所有惱人瑣事隨雲雀之高飛，暫遠拋九宵雲外，換得幾許清心自在。

The Lark Ascending (by George Meredith)

He rises and begins to round,

He drops the silver chain of sound,

Of many links without a break,

In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,

All intervolved and spreading wide,

Like water-dimples down a tide

Where ripple ripple overcurls

And eddy into eddy whirls;

A press of hurried notes that run

So fleet they scarce are more than one,

Yet changeingly the trills repeat

And linger ringing while they fleet,

Sweet to the quick o' the ear, and dear

To her beyond the handmaid ear,

Who sits beside our inner springs,

Too often dry for this he brings,

Which seems the very jet of earth

At sight of sun, her music's mirth,

As up he wings the spiral stair,

A song of light, and pierces air

With fountain ardour, fountain play,

To reach the shining tops of day,

And drink in everything discerned

An ecstasy to music turned,

Impelled by what his happy bill

Disperses; drinking, showering still,

Unthinking save that he may give

His voice the outlet, there to live

Renewed in endless notes of glee,

So thirsty of his voice is he,

For all to hear and all to know

That he is joy, awake, aglow;

The tumult of the heart to hear

Through pureness filtered crystal-clear,

And know the pleasure sprinkled bright

By simple singing of delight;

Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained,

Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained

Without a break, without a fall,

Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,

Perennial, quavering up the chord

Like myriad dews of sunny sward

That trembling into fulness shine,

And sparkle dropping argentine;

Such wooing as the ear receives

From zephyr caught in choric leaves

Of aspens when their chattering net

Is flushed to white with shivers wet;

And such the water-spirit's chime

On mountain heights in morning's prime,

Too freshly sweet to seem excess,

Too animate to need a stress;

But wider over many heads

The starry voice ascending spreads,

Awakening, as it waxes thin,

The best in us to him akin;

And every face to watch him raised,

Puts on the light of children praised;

So rich our human pleasure ripes

When sweetness on sincereness pipes,

Though nought be promised from the seas,

But only a soft-ruffling breeze

Sweep glittering on a still content,

Serenity in ravishment

For singing till his heaven fills,

'Tis love of earth that he instils,

And ever winging up and up,

Our valley is his golden cup,

And he the wine which overflows

To lift us with him as he goes:

The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine,

He is, the hills, the human line,

The meadows green, the fallows brown,

The dreams of labour in the town;

He sings the sap, the quickened veins;

The wedding song of sun and rains

He is, the dance of children, thanks

Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,

And eye of violets while they breathe;

All these the circling song will wreathe,

And you shall hear the herb and tree,

The better heart of men shall see,

Shall feel celestially, as long

As you crave nothing save the song.

Was never voice of ours could say

Our inmost in the sweetest way,

Like yonder voice aloft, and link

All hearers in the song they drink.

Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,

Our passion is too full in flood,

We want the key of his wild note

Of truthful in a tuneful throat;

The song seraphically free

Of taint of personality,

So pure that it salutes the suns

The voice of one for millions,

In whom the millions rejoice

For giving their one spirit voice.

Yet men have we, whom we revere,

Now names, and men still housing here,

Whose lives, by many a battle-dint

Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,

Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet

For song our highest heaven to greet:

Whom heavenly singing gives us new,

Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,

From firmest base to farthest leap,

Because their love of Earth is deep,

And they are warriors in accord

With life to serve, and, pass reward,

So touching purest and so heard

In the brain's reflex of yon bird:

Wherefore their soul in me, or mine,

Through self-forgetfulness divine,

In them, that song aloft maintains,

To fill the sky and thrill the plains

With showerings drawn from human stores,

As he to silence nearer soars,

Extends the world at wings and dome,

More spacious making more our home,

Till lost on his aerial rings

In light, and then the fancy sings.