刚好我们拥有史蒂文斯和他的《齐维斯特的秩序的观念》（The Idea of Order at Key West）。 于是我们有了一个关于诗歌中的倾听和诗歌影响的近乎完美的故事。它是无法确证的，确显得很合理，并且传达出一个具有普遍意义的讯息----在充满异化和分裂的现代，做一个积极回应前代诗人的浪漫派的歌唱者的代价首先是一系列充满迷惑的甚至是创伤性的倾听经验。 故事到此已经可以结尾。 然而，作为一个中国的诗歌读者，我仍然感到迷惑并且无法满足于上述关于诗歌的观念和故事。
读起来并不象故事主人公说得那么糟糕。尽管郁达夫在生活中见过不少农村的劳动妇女，而且对于郁达夫这样的非常熟悉中国古诗传统的人来说，歌唱的女人也是诗歌中常见的人物， 但英语中的华滋华斯的苏格兰割麦女在郁达夫的眼中仍是一个陌生的形象。在郁达夫养成的旧体诗的视野里，歌唱的女人往往是最具中国文化色彩的艺术女性，她们曾经在漫长的诗歌史上扮演歌唱者和倾听者的角色。 她们是诗歌的演唱者和鉴赏者，受她们推崇的程度经常成为衡量诗人声誉的标准之一。她们促进诗歌的流行，同时用自己的文化修养和与诗人的关系提高身价。这样的例子不胜枚举，比如在返回长安的白居易和以能背诵《长恨歌》而自高身价的歌女之间，话本小说中的柳永和品评他的词作的名姬之间，都存在诗人和公开活动的女艺术家的共生关系。诗人们一方面以歌女为知己，另一方面也经常和她们相互怜惜以至在作品把她们作为伤感失意时的自我镜像。 但过分伤感而且急于抒发个人哀怨的郁达夫显然不太适应华滋华斯简洁凝练地勾画出的在苏格兰高地上歌唱的下层劳动少女的形象：
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
看她，在田里孤独的一个，
那个苏格兰高原的少女！
独自在收割，独自在歌唱；
停住吧，或者悄悄走过去！
她独自割麦，又把它捆好，
唱这一支忧郁的曲调；
听啊！整个深邃的谷地
都有这一片歌声在洋溢。 （卞之琳译）
比如，在《橡树下的单人纸牌游戏》（Solitaire under the Oaks, 1955）一诗中，已经76岁的史蒂文斯就跟“孤独的”做了游戏：
相忘在纸牌中
纯粹的法则间，人活着。
既不是纸牌又不是树木也不是空气
坚持如真相。这是一种遁逃
逃往原理，逃往沉思。
最终人知道该想什么
并且想想它，没有知觉地，
在橡树之下，彻底地解脱。
In the oblivion of cards
One exists among pure principles.
Neither the cards nor the trees nor the air
Persist as facts. This is an escape
To principium, to meditation.
One knows at last what to think about
And think about it, without consciousness,
Under the oak trees, completely released.
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.
For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
这种精神并非自然的产物，它不是上升中被波浪染色的“大海的语声”，也不是代表着虚无的空气的演说， 也不是循环在一个季节里的单纯的声音。“它不止于此”（it was more than that） ， 这种表达形式多次出现在史蒂文斯的诗里，他总是这样去寻求更丰富的可能性。 结果，这种精神不但不是自然的产物，甚至不是女歌唱者的产物， 尽管她是她的歌和这个她在其中歌唱的短暂的世界的创造者：
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker\'s rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.