2022-8-25

一本旧书，《英文爱情诗选》（For You：A Collection of Old Favoritte Love Songs）的小册子，是1902年纽约道奇出版社发行的，每页都以彩色信笺的方式，图文并茂，汇集了古今英文爱情诗一百零八篇。

布嵴硬皮的封面，花簇锦绣的每一篇，这是在那个时代，一百二十年前，所能印制的，最为精致的一本书，没有之一。

开首第一篇，即是蒋怀特（John Whittier，1807-1892）的《我思故我爱》（Beacuse, You See, I Love You）:

我思故我爱

I’m sorry that I spelt the word:

   I hate to go above you,

Because, the brown eyes lower fell,

   Because, you see, I love you!

启齿怕嘴笨

语句最伤身

我思故我爱

闭目忆佳人

这一首小诗，节选自蒋怀特长诗《同桌的你》（In School-days）。当初钱钟书围城小说中的王尔恺手抄的苏文执旧作，也大概是一样的意思：从此无法开门，你关在我心里。

Still sits the school-house by the road,

   A ragged beggar sleeping;

Around it still the sumachs grow,

   And blackberry-vines are creeping.

Within, the master’s desk is seen,

   Deep scarred by raps official;

The warping floor, the battered seats,

   The jack-knife’s carved initial;

The charcoal frescos on its wall;

   Its door’s worn sill, betraying

The feet that, creeping slow to school,

   Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun

   Shone over it at setting;

Lit up its western window-panes,

   And low eaves’ icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,

   And brown eyes full of grieving,

Of one who still her steps delayed

   When all the school were leaving.

For near her stood the little boy

   Her childish favor singled:

His cap pulled low upon a face

   Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow

   To right and left, he lingered;—

As restlessly her tiny hands

   The blue-checked apron fingered.

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt

   The soft hand’s light caressing,

And heard the tremble of her voice,

   As if a fault confessing.

“I’m sorry that I spelt the word:

   I hate to go above you,

Because,”—the brown eyes lower fell,—

   “Because, you see, I love you!”

Still memory to a gray-haired man

   That sweet child-face is showing.

Dear girl! the grasses on her grave

   Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn, in life’s hard school,

   How few who pass above him

Lament their triumph and his loss,

   Like her,—because they love him.

这是一个凄美的爱情故事，也是梁祝故事在西方的翻版：一位白发苍苍行将就木的老人，在40多年后拖着病躯，到学校门口，去回忆和祭奠他儿时的旧爱，和当初相识时的甜美时光。

不仅仅如此，这首小诗的背后，还有女权主义的阴影，所以才感人至深。因为作者本人，就是一个女权和废奴主义者。

• The poem In School-days was written in 1869 and Whittier may have drawn a bit on his own experience as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. The poem was praised by the public as well as by other poets with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow commenting：There is something more in education than is set down in the school-books. Whittier has touched this point very poetically in that little lyric of his. 

• Oliver Wendell Holmes said of the poem in a letter to Whittier, ...I had no sooner read them [the lines] that I fell into such ecstasy that I could hardly find words too high-colored to speak of them to my little household. I hardly think I dared read them aloud. My eyes fill with tears just looking at them in my scrapbook, now, while I am writing.