2022-8-25

一本舊書，《英文愛情詩選》（For You：A Collection of Old Favoritte Love Songs）的小冊子，是1902年紐約道奇出版社發行的，每頁都以彩色信箋的方式，圖文並茂，匯集了古今英文愛情詩一百零八篇。

布嵴硬皮的封面，花簇錦繡的每一篇，這是在那個時代，一百二十年前，所能印製的，最為精緻的一本書，沒有之一。

開首第一篇，即是蔣懷特（John Whittier，1807-1892）的《我思故我愛》（Beacuse, You See, I Love You）:

我思故我愛

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!

啟齒怕嘴笨

語句最傷身

我思故我愛

閉目憶佳人

這一首小詩，節選自蔣懷特長詩《同桌的你》（In School-days）。當初錢鍾書圍城小說中的王爾愷手抄的蘇文執舊作，也大概是一樣的意思：從此無法開門，你關在我心裡。

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.

這是一個悽美的愛情故事，也是梁祝故事在西方的翻版：一位白髮蒼蒼行將就木的老人，在40多年後拖着病軀，到學校門口，去回憶和祭奠他兒時的舊愛，和當初相識時的甜美時光。

不僅僅如此，這首小詩的背後，還有女權主義的陰影，所以才感人至深。因為作者本人，就是一個女權和廢奴主義者。

• 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.