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我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹

I Know Not in Which Direction the Wind Blows

徐志摩

Xu Zhimo

名篇Theme 现代诗poetry 迷惘Lostness and perplexity

我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，在梦的轻波里依洄。
我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，它的温存，我的迷醉。

I know not in which direction the wind blows —
I am dreaming, drifting in the light waves of the dream.
I know not in which direction the wind blows —
I am dreaming: its tenderness, my intoxication.
Listen

Meaning

Xu Zhimo's poem asks a question it never answers. The wind stands for the direction of the times, of fate, of a feeling going somewhere; the speaker declares that he does not know which way it blows, and explains why he can bear not knowing: he is asleep. In the first stanza he drifts on the light waves of the dream; in the second the dream supplies something warmer — the wind's tenderness, his own drunkenness. The poem is a study of a mind that has stopped looking for direction and has taken refuge in dreaming.

我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，在梦的轻波里依洄。我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，它的温存，我的迷醉。

Appreciation

[Plain Paraphrase] The poem has four lines and only two sentences, and both sentences are said twice. The first sentence states the disaster — the wind's direction is unknown — and the second sentence offers the consolation — I am in a dream. The two stanzas differ only in the fourth line: first drifting, then being caressed. [Structure] The poem is built from a repeating phrase, the question, and a repeating answer, the phrase 'I am dreaming,' and the final line of each stanza is the only part that changes. That makes the poem a song with a fixed refrain and a short, free variation at the end of each stanza — the exact form of a folk ballad, which is precisely what Xu means it to be. [Imagery] The imagery is entirely of water and intoxication: light waves, drifting, tenderness, drunkenness. Nothing in the poem has an edge to it. This is why the poem feels less sad than it is: the speaker's loss of direction is described in a language of caress. [Tone] The whole poem is spoken below its own natural volume. There is no exclamation, no argument, and the dashes after the repeated question do nothing but let the voice trail off.

【白话串讲】 徐志摩写《我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹》：“我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，在梦的轻波里依洄”——“我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，它的温存，我的迷醉”——他写梦中的迷惘。 【意象与手法】 以「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」的复沓起兴，如主题乐句反复奏响；「我是在梦中」的复唱与「梦的轻波」「依洄」「温存」「迷醉」等意象，织成一片朦胧迷离的梦境；重章叠句、一唱三叹，音乐性极强 【情感与主旨】 写身处时代与情感的迷雾中不知何往的迷惘——风不知从何而来，我亦不知身在何处，唯在梦中依洄；是徐志摩后期诗歌理想幻灭、情怀迷离的典型心境 【名句点睛】 「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」以设问起兴，成为新诗中写「迷惘」的经典诗句，被后人反复引用，概括了整整一代知识分子的彷徨

Background

Xu Zhimo (1897–1931), from Haining in Zhejiang, was the leading poet of the Crescent Moon society. This poem was written around 1928 and gathered into his collection Tiger (1931), which is where the change in his work is dated: his early years had been open, ardent, even violent, and the Tiger years are the years of his restraint. Around 1928 his marriage to Lu Xiaoman had gone from a romantic elopement into a exhausting, moneyed quarrel; he made his third journey to Europe and revisited Cambridge, where the past was only past; and the whole intellectual world around him was in the low tide after the failure of the great revolution. Lu Xun named that mood pánghuáng, Mao Dun wrote The Erosion, Dai Wangshu wrote the Rainy Alley, and this poem is Xu Zhimo's share of the same weather. The full poem has six stanzas; these are the second and third.

徐志摩（1897—1931），浙江海宁人，新月派代表诗人。此诗写于1928年前后，收入诗集《猛虎集》（1931年出版），是他创作成熟期的作品。1928年前后的徐志摩，正处于人生与创作的双重困顿：与陆小曼结婚后，生活陷入琐屑与失和，经济拮据、情感消磨；作为新月派的领袖，他理想中的「诗化生活」与现实的平庸形成巨大落差；1928年他第三次赴欧，重访剑桥与故地，旧梦重温而人事已非，归来后写下《再别康桥》与《我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹》等诗，都是这一心境的产品。就时代而言，1928年正值大革命失败后的低潮期，知识界弥漫着幻灭与彷徨的情绪——鲁迅称之为「彷徨」，茅盾写《蚀》，戴望舒写《雨巷》，皆以迷惘为底色；徐志摩此诗正是这种时代情绪在浪漫主义诗人笔下的回声。「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」这个标题本身即是时代的隐喻：风代表时代潮流、命运方向与情感去向，而「我不知道」则是主体对其的彻底无知——诗人与时代、与自我都失去了确定的联系，唯有在梦中依洄。全诗（共六节，节选其二）以复沓的句式、朦胧的梦境意象，把这种「不知何往」的迷惘写得低回婉转，是徐志摩后期诗风的典型代表。

Art

The poem is an experiment in making perplexity into a form. Its machinery is plain repetition: the question is repeated verbatim as the opening line of each stanza, and the answer 'I am dreaming' is repeated verbatim after it, so that the poem is mechanically the same twice over. That mechanical sameness is the subject — a man whose life has lost its direction will repeat himself, and the poem's very structure enacts what it describes. Against this fixed frame, each stanza is allowed one line of variation: yīhuí in the first, wēncún and mízuì in the second, and the variation is what makes the poem advance. The central image, the wind, performs the same service: it is what makes the poem's title a question rather than a description, and the answer — I am dreaming — converts an unknown into a tolerated condition. Finally, the poem never uses a strong verb or a hard consonant; its sound is as soft as its conclusion, so that the reader is not shocked into noticing how little has been resolved.

此诗的艺术核心在「复沓与梦境的同构」。结构上，全诗采用重章叠句的民歌体：每节皆以「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」起兴，继以「我是在梦中」复唱，如主题乐句与副歌的交替，一唱三叹、回环往复；节选的两节分别以「在梦的轻波里依洄」「它的温存，我的迷醉」收束，句式对称而意象递进，构成并列中的推进。意象经营上，全诗笼罩在「梦」的雾霭中：「梦的轻波」写梦境之轻柔起伏，「依洄」写梦中人的盘旋徘徊，「温存」写风的体贴慰藉，「迷醉」写主体的沉溺陶醉——由「依洄」到「迷醉」，写尽了「我」在梦中的失重状态。表现手法上，以「风」为中心意象：风本无形无相、来去无定，「不知道风在哪一个方向吹」把「迷惘」这种抽象情绪具象为对风向的无知；而「我是在梦中」的解释，又把迷惘归于梦境——是梦使一切方向丧失，也是梦使一切迷惘变得可以忍受。句式上，「我是在梦中」四字反复，如呓语、如催眠，使全诗读来如梦中呓语，形式与内容浑然一体。此诗不用一个奇字，全凭句式的回环与意象的朦胧营造出迷离恍惚的诗境，是徐志摩「以音乐写情绪」的典范。

Allusions

Both key images have long histories. The wind in Chinese poetry is never only weather: the Book of Songs has the southern wind playing on the jujube heart, the Chu elegies have the wind sighing over fallen woods, Li Bai has a long wind that will carry a man across the sea, Wang Bo sends autumn geese off on a long wind as a farewell. What Xu does is write the rare case in that tradition of a wind without a direction — the wind is normally named (east wind, south wind), and the un-named wind is precisely the modern predicament. The dream is even older: Zhuangzi's butterfly, Qu Yuan's nine departures of the soul, Li Shangyin's morning dream of a butterfly — all of them ask whether the dream is the alternative to reality or a deeper reality. That dream of a butterfly question is behind the line 'I am dreaming': his waking state is not owed anything, and sleeping is not falseness. The word wēncún belongs to the older vocabulary of tender consolation, and applying it to the wind — which has no feeling at all — is the poem's quiet use of the sentimental transfer that Wang Guowei described when he said that objects take on the colour of the self that perceives them.

此诗的文化意蕴，深植于「风」「梦」两大意象源远流长的传统之中。其一，「风」的意象：风在中国诗歌中既是自然现象，更是情感与命运的象征——《诗经》「凯风自南，吹彼棘心」以风写母爱，楚辞「风飒飒兮木萧萧」以风写愁思，李白「长风破浪会有时」以风写壮志，王勃「长风万里送秋雁」以风写别情；而「不知道风在哪一个方向吹」，则是这个传统中罕见的「失向」书写——风本有定向（东风、南风、西风），诗人却对风向一无所知，这正写出了时代风向迷离、主体无所适从的现代性困境。其二，「梦」的意象：中国文学有悠久的「梦」传统——庄周梦蝶（不知周之梦为蝴蝶与，蝴蝶之梦为周与）、屈原「魂一夕而九逝」、李商隐「庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶」，梦是现实的反面、是精神的逃避所；徐志摩写「我是在梦中」，把「梦」从「昨夜之梦」提升为「整个人生状态」——不是夜里做了个梦，而是醒着也如在梦中，这正是对庄周梦蝶「不知是梦是醒」的现代回响。「梦的轻波」更把「梦」与水波相连，如于梦中泛舟，写出梦境的轻柔流动。其三，「温存」一词，暗含情感的依恋——「它的温存」的「它」指风（或风所象征的一切），风本无情，诗人却觉其温存，正是「以我观物，故物皆著我之色彩」（王国维《人间词话》）的移情法。全诗正是这样：借风的传统意象写失向之迷惘，借梦的传统意象写逃避之姿态，而在二者之间，是一个浪漫主义诗人对时代与自我的双重失语。

Commentary

I Know Not in Which Direction the Wind Blows is among the most representative of Xu Zhimo's late poems and one of the best-known Chinese poems about lostness. From the moment it appeared in 1928 the refrain became a summary of a whole generation's condition: after the great revolution's collapse, many intellectuals found themselves exactly here, in a boat that could not tell which way it was facing, and the line has served as a shorthand for that ever since. In literary history it is usually read beside the Rainy Alley as one of the two standard poems of modern Chinese despair, and Xu's device of building a poem out of repeated phrases is singled out as the extreme case of the Crescent Moon poets' musicalization of free verse — later readers, notably Bian Zhilin, wrote about the rhythmic sense he established in such poems. In Xu's own development this poem marks the passage from the outward heat of his first collection to a lower, inward manner. Critics have nevertheless disagreed: some call it the purest lyric in the language, others find it empty, since it ends in a state and not in an act. That disagreement has not diminished the poem's readership.

《我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹》是徐志摩后期诗歌的代表作，也是中国新诗史上写「迷惘」最著名的篇章之一。此诗1928年发表后，其回环的句式与朦胧的意境迅速获得广泛共鸣——「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」一句，成为概括一代知识分子彷徨心态的经典表述：大革命失败后的低潮期，许多知识分子正如诗中的「我」，不知时代之舟驶向何方，唯有在梦中依洄。文学史上，此诗常与戴望舒《雨巷》等并列为现代诗歌写「迷惘」的代表作，而徐志摩以复沓乐句写迷惘的手法，尤被推为「音乐化抒情」的极致；后世论者（如卞之琳）推赏徐志摩在自由诗中建立的节律感，此诗正是其节律感最纯粹的呈现。就徐志摩个人的创作历程而言，此诗标志着他从《志摩的诗》时期的热情外放走向《猛虎集》时期的低回内敛——狂放的自我被迷惘的自我取代，直抒的激情化为梦呓的沉吟，这种转变既是个人际遇使然，也是时代风气的投影。后世论者对此诗评价不一：或赏其音乐之美、意境之朦，誉为「新诗中最纯粹的抒情诗之一」；或议其内容空泛、止于迷惘而无所指归，正见诗史评价的两歧。然而无论如何，这首以「不知道」为题的短诗，确以最少的词句捕捉了最大的迷惘，至今读来，依然能让人听见那个时代知识分子的心音。

Prosody

Form Modern free verse of the Crescent Moon school, a song-like poem built on repeated stanzas of four lines现代自由诗（新月派音乐化抒情诗，重章叠句体）
Rhyme The rhyme is carried almost entirely by the repeated final word of each stanza's third line, which rhymes with the word the stanza opens on; the effect is a single sound (here rendered as 'blows') recurs like a bell at the close of every variation. 'Drifting' and 'intoxication' then answer each other in the fourth line, so within each stanza there is a small, closed rhyme.全诗六节（节选两节），每节四行，二、四行押韵：吹／洄（灰堆辙）、吹／醉（灰堆辙）——「吹」字作为复沓句的韵脚反复出现，是全诗恒定的韵眼，如钟摆般来回敲击，强化了「不知何往」的循环感；节内一三行（我不知道……吹）为复沓长句，二四行为短句收束（我是在梦中……／在梦的轻波里依洄），长句舒卷、短句低回，如波浪起伏，与「梦的轻波」意象同构。全诗一韵到底（灰堆辙），韵律单纯而回环，是「以重复写迷惘」的音乐典范。
Tone pattern The voice is low, repeated and unhurried: the opening question is spoken as if to no one, the answer is almost a murmur, and the closing lines sink further. There is no high pitch and no sudden dynamic anywhere in the poem, and the whole reading should stay in the lower register of the voice.全诗语调低回呢喃，如梦中呓语：开篇「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」以设问的语调缓缓吐出，破折号后「我是在梦中」转为自语的呢喃，收束的「依洄」「迷醉」则沉入梦呓的恍惚；两节复沓，语调如螺旋般盘旋往复，愈转愈低、愈低愈迷；全诗无一处高音，无一句呐喊，始终在低回的音区徘徊，与「迷惘」「沉溺」的情绪完全同构。
Reading note The poem's music is made of repetition rather than of rhyme. Each stanza begins with the same four words, and each stanza ends with the same words about dreaming; between these fixed points only the third and fourth lines change. What results is a melody that seems unable to move, which is the point: the 'wind' cannot be asked where it is going, so the poem cannot be allowed to arrive. The repeated sound at the close of each stanza does the work of a rhyme, and because the same sound returns six times in the full poem, it works like a bell struck and re-struck. Read the piece slowly and evenly, letting the refrain come back at exactly the same pitch each time — the variation is only supposed to be one step deeper, and any emphasis on it will break the spell.《我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹》是徐志摩「以音乐写情绪」的巅峰之作，其声情艺术的核心是「复沓的魔力」。全诗六节，每节都是同一个旋律的变奏：首句「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」如主题乐句，每节准时响起，永不变化——这种机械般的重复，本身就是「迷惘」的声学形态：生活失去了方向，诗歌便失去了变化，唯有在原地打转，重复即迷惘，迷惘即重复；次句「我是在梦中」如副歌应答，紧接着主题，把每次的迷惘都归于梦境；末二句则以变化收束（依洄／温存／迷醉……），如主题乐句之后的一串装饰音，在不变中透出层层推进的情感。韵脚的处理尤见匠心：全诗押「吹」字韵（吹／洄、吹／醉……），「吹」既是复沓句的末字，又是韵脚，一字身兼二职——它既是方向的追问（风往哪吹），又是音韵的定音（一韵到底），声与义在此重合：反复敲击的「吹」韵，如迷惘的钟声，一下一下，敲在读者心上。节选两节中，第一节「在梦的轻波里依洄」以「洄」收束，如水流盘旋；第二节「它的温存，我的迷醉」以「醉」收束，如人已沉醉——韵脚不变而情味递深，正是「同韵异情」的妙用。全诗读来，如一个人在梦呓中反复追问一个没有答案的问题，其音乐性的单纯与迷惘的纯粹互为表里：形式上的「不知变化」，恰是内容上「不知何往」的最忠实表达。这首「以重复写重复」的诗，证明新诗的音乐美不仅可以靠韵脚与节奏，更可以靠句式的执拗复沓本身——重复到极致，便是最深的迷惘。

Line by line

我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，在梦的轻波里依洄。

I know not in which direction the wind blows — I am dreaming, drifting in the light waves of the dream.

我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，在梦的轻柔波浪里来回盘旋。

I know not in which direction the wind blows—I am in a dream, drifting on its light waves.

这是全诗的第一节，定下了「不知何往」的迷惘基调，也确立了复沓的旋律。首句「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」以设问起兴：「风」在此兼具自然与象征的双重意味——实指风之方向，虚指时代潮流、命运去向与情感归宿；「不知道」三字是全诗的关键词，写主体对一切方向的彻底无知，是一种丧失定向的存在状态。破折号之后，诗人给出了回答：「我是在梦中」——原来这一切迷惘都发生在梦里：梦是现实的反面，是方向的消解者，在梦中不知风向，便是理所当然；这一「回答」实则是逃避——把迷惘归诸梦境，既是解释，也是自欺。「在梦的轻波里依洄」是本节最见功力的意象句：「梦的轻波」把无形之梦比为轻柔的波浪，梦境由此有了质感与动感；「依洄」写梦中人顺着波势来回盘旋、徘徊不去——不是挣扎，而是依恋，不是要走出梦境，而是甘愿在梦中打转。「依洄」二字暗合《楚辞》徘徊的愁思传统，把「迷惘而不愿醒」的复杂心态写得缠绵入骨。全节句式一长一短、一问一答，如叹息般低回，奠定了全诗「不知何往」的情感基调。

The wind. I know not in which direction the wind blows—I am in a dream, drifting on its light waves. The know-not-which-direction and the dream's light waves are the opening. To have not known the direction would be a not-knowing; the i-know-not-in-which-direction-the-wind-blows-i-am-in-a-dream-drifting-on-its-light-waves is the not-knowing.

我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，它的温存，我的迷醉。

I know not in which direction the wind blows — I am dreaming: its tenderness, my intoxication.

我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中，感受着它的温存，沉入我的迷醉。

I know not in which direction the wind blows—I am in a dream: its tenderness, my intoxication.

这是节选的第二节，与第一节句式全同而复沓，而意象由「依洄」推进为「温存」「迷醉」，情感由徘徊深入为沉溺。首句「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹」原句复唱，如主题乐句再次奏响——复沓在这里不仅是音乐手段，更是「迷惘」本身的反复确认：我不知道，我不知道，愈确认愈迷惘。破折号后「我是在梦中」依旧复唱，梦境依旧；而变化在收束处：「它的温存，我的迷醉」——「它」指风，「温存」是风给与的体贴慰藉，「迷醉」是主体对这份温存的沉醉。两组对举（它的／我的、温存／迷醉），一主一客、一施一受，写尽了「我」与风（命运）之间的纠缠：风本无定向、无温度，诗人却感到它的「温存」，并为此「迷醉」——这是典型的移情与自慰：在不知何往的迷惘中，诗人把风的任何来向都当作慰藉，把自己交给迷醉。由第一节的「依洄」（徘徊）到本节的「迷醉」（沉溺），情感层层深入：起初还在梦中打转，如今已甘愿醉倒梦中。两句复沓而意象递进，如螺旋上升的旋律，把「迷惘中的沉溺」写到极致；而「我的迷醉」的「我」字前置，更突出主体对迷醉的主动接受——迷惘至此，已成甘愿。

The intoxication. I know not in which direction the wind blows—I am in a dream: its tenderness, my intoxication. The repeated wind-not-known and the its-tenderness-my-intoxication are the close. To have been intoxicated would be an intoxication; the i-know-not-in-which-direction-the-wind-blows-i-am-in-a-dream-its-tenderness-my-intoxication is the intoxication.

Study

Word focus

依洄 'Drifting yīhuí in the light waves of the dream' — yīhuí (yīhuí) describes water going in circles, eddying and returning without arriving, and it is a precise word for a dream state: the sleeper moves but does not travel. It also rhymes with the repeated question's cadence, and because it is the one image in the stanza that describes motion, yīhuí is what makes the poem's drift physical rather than merely emotional. 「在梦的轻波里依洄」之「依洄」，是全诗最见锤炼的动词，写尽了梦中人的姿态。「依洄」即徘徊、盘旋、流连不去之意，由「依」（依恋、依靠）与「洄」（水流回旋）合成：二字皆从「人」与「水」取象——「依」写人对梦的依恋，「洄」写波的回旋，合而观之，是「在梦的轻波里顺着水势来回盘旋」的完整画面。这个词的妙处有三：其一，「依洄」不同于「徘徊」（纯粹来回走动），多了一层「依」的眷恋——不是想走而走不了，而是不舍得走，甘愿在梦中打转，把「迷惘中的沉溺」写得入木三分；其二，「洄」字本写水波回旋，与「梦的轻波」无缝衔接——依洄于轻波，人随波转，物我一体，梦境之轻柔流动如在目前；其三，「依洄」二字古雅，暗承《楚辞》「步徙倚而遥思兮」的徘徊传统与曹植「依波而行」的流连意象，为白话诗注入古典的韵味。一个「依洄」，写尽梦中人的失重与留恋，是徐志摩「以一字写一境」的典范。
温存 'Its wēncún, my intoxication' — wēncún (wēncún) means to caress, to treat someone tenderly, and here it is applied to the wind, which has no feeling at all. That transfer is the poem's emotional center: the wind becomes kind only because the dreamer needs it to be, and the poem never admits the difference. The following word, mízuì ('intoxicated'), completes the sentence, so that what begins as comfort is quietly already an addiction. 「它的温存，我的迷醉」之「温存」，是理解全诗情感结构的钥匙。「温存」本指温柔体贴、抚慰关怀，多用于写人情之暖；此处却写「风」的温存——风本无形无情，诗人却感到它的体贴与慰藉，这是典型的移情（「以我观物，故物皆著我之色彩」）：不是风真的温存，而是「我」在迷惘中需要温存，便把风的吹拂读作慰藉。这个词的妙处有二：其一，「温存」与「迷醉」对举（它的温存／我的迷醉），构成施受关系——风的温存是「我」迷醉的原因，「我」的迷醉是温存的效果，主客之间由此达成一种微妙的和解：在不知何往的迷惘中，至少还有「温存」可依、「迷醉」可沉，诗人借移情为无望的处境找到了一丝慰藉；其二，「温存」一词的温软质感，与全诗「轻波」「依洄」「迷醉」等词共同织成一片绵软朦胧的梦境氛围——它的出现，使「风」由「不知方向」的虚无变成了「可感可依」的实体。一字之移情，把迷惘写得缠绵而不绝望，正是徐志摩后期诗歌「以美化解苦」的典型手法。

Related Reading

再别康桥 Farewell Again to Cambridge 徐志摩 · 同出徐志摩之手，同以复沓音乐化写同一时期的迷惘 Both were written by Xu in the same years for his Tiger collection and both use repeated stanzas to make music; the difference is that his other farewell still has somewhere to return to.

Farewell Again to Cambridge, written on his third visit to the place, uses the very same instruments — repeated refrain, soft images, a low and lingering voice — but the míwǎng there has an object. The willow in the dusk, the ripple's beauty, the starry light of the river: the poet knows exactly what it is he is leaving, and the poem's circular structure is the circle of a departure he can complete. In this poem the circle is the symptom: there is no Cambridge, no person, no place, only a wind whose direction is unknown. One poem can be finished and closed; this one can only be repeated. Read together they are the two faces of the same year — the man who was leaving a place and the man who had lost his direction — and they show how completely the same technique serves both.

《我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹》与《再别康桥》同写于1928年前后，同收入《猛虎集》，同以复沓句式营造音乐美，是徐志摩创作成熟期的一对「音乐姊妹篇」。相同处：都以重章叠句为骨架——《我不知道风》以「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中」的乐句反复奏响，《再别康桥》以「轻轻」「悄悄」的叠词与首尾复沓构成圆环；都以低回婉转的旋律写理想与现实之间的怅惘。差异在情感指向：《再别康桥》的迷惘有明确的依归——康桥，是「对具体之美的告别」，故明丽深情、有光有色（金柳、星辉、彩虹）；《我不知道风》的迷惘则无所依归——风不知何向、身在梦中，是「对一切方向的失去」，故朦胧空灵、无色无相。一具体一抽象，一明丽一朦胧，恰好展示了徐志摩用同一音乐手法处理两种迷惘的功力，也可见他1928年前后创作的两副面孔。

 雨巷 The Rainy Alley 戴望舒 · 同为新诗「迷惘」母题的代表作，复沓音乐化的双璧 The two are the standard poems of modern Chinese lostness, written in the same season of the same year, and the two imaginations move in opposite directions.

Dai Wangshu's poem, from the same troubled months, walks a long, sad alley and hopes to meet a girl like a lilac, carrying her sadness; the ending is the wrong tense — the meeting is never shown, only hoped for — and the atmosphere is drenched and colorlessly sad. This poem drifts instead of walking, and its ending is a state rather than a loss; the tone is numb rather than weeping. Where Dai's imagination makes the world smaller and wetter, Xu's makes it weightless — waves, tenderness, drunkenness. The two are usually taught together because they are the two available postures for a generation that could not find its way: one weeps in the alley, one sleeps through the weather.

戴望舒《雨巷》与《我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹》同写于1928年前后，同为大革命失败后知识界「迷惘」情绪的诗歌投影，同以复沓与音韵的反复营造低回的音乐，是写「迷惘」的双璧。《雨巷》以「悠长、悠长又寂寥的雨巷」「丁香一样的姑娘」的复沓与「ang」韵的绵延，写理想（丁香姑娘）可望而不可即的幻灭；《我不知道风》以「我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹——我是在梦中」的复沓与「吹」韵的反复，写方向丧失、身在梦中的迷惘。差异在美学与心态：《雨巷》属现代派象征主义，意象阴郁（雨巷、丁香、愁怨），写「追求而不得」的绝望，带着古典的哀怨；《我不知道风》属新月派浪漫主义，意象空灵（风、梦、轻波），写「不知何往」的恍惚，带着梦呓的迷醉。一哀一迷、一绝望一恍惚，合观恰见1928年前后新诗「迷惘」书写的两种声调。

 偶然 Occasional 徐志摩 · 同出《猛虎集》，「飘忽」母题的一体两面 Both are in Tiger and both treat the same experience of things not holding still, but their vocabulary marks the distance between an earlier and a later way of feeling it.

Occasional opens 'I am a cloud in the sky, sometimes casting a shadow into your heart of water,' and its subject is that meetings and partings happen by chance and nothing lasts; the poem's consolation is in the beauty of that transience, and even in the shadow it leaves. This poem goes a step further: the cloud is gone, and what remains is a wind that cannot even be pointed at. In Occasional the drifting is still an event with a bright moment in it; here the drifting has become the ordinary condition, and the only remaining comfort is the dream. Placed together, the two show how one poet's sense of life's instability deepened from an occasional lovely accident to a permanent state, and both are better for having been written in the same collection.

《偶然》「我是天空里的一片云，偶尔投影在你的波心」与《我不知道风是在哪一个方向吹》同收于《猛虎集》，同写「飘忽无定」的人生体验，是同一母题的两面。《偶然》写「云」的飘忽：我是云，偶尔投影，转瞬即逝——飘忽是「偶然」的，相逢与别离皆无定数；《我不知道风》写「风」的飘忽：风不知何向，我在梦中依洄——飘忽是「常态」的，连方向本身都不可知。云尚有形（可投影于波心），风则无形（连方向都无从知晓），从云到风，飘忽由「偶发事件」变成了「存在状态」；《偶然》还有交会的瞬间光亮（波心之影），《我不知道风》则连光亮也没有，只剩梦中的依洄与迷醉。两诗并读，可见徐志摩对「无常」的体认如何一步步加深：起初还珍视偶然的投影，后来连方向都放弃追问；而两诗都以轻灵飘逸的笔法写这种体认，正是徐志摩「以美写悲」的一贯姿态。