阿尔弗雷德·诺伊斯

在这里你会发现长诗拿着琥珀鼻烟盒的老绅士诗人阿尔弗雷德·诺伊斯

拿着琥珀鼻烟盒的老绅士

老先生敲着他的琥珀鼻烟壶(一个带金扣的心形鼻烟壶),凝视着即将熄灭的炉火。“我希望我死后他们都能理解,”他喃喃地说。“可是怎么才能做得精致呢!”我不能道歉。我来暗示一下……节;而且,为了确保罗莎琳德能读完它,我将把它作为我遗嘱的附录!——你看,我还是很愤世嫉俗。他没办法。他见过很多,感受过很多。他啪地一声关上鼻烟壶,摇了摇他那白色的花冠,修了修长长的羽毛笔,然后小心翼翼地开始写起来,这些对联,用古老的英雄风格:“啊,如果我在少年时代就知道,只知道时光已使我成为自己的一些悲哀的真理,那么,在学习如何生活的过程中,我就不会失去青春所能给予的最好的东西,不会失去生命本身。” This laboring heart would not be tired so soon, This jaded blood would jog to a livelier tune: And some few friends, could I begin again, Should know more happiness, and much less pain. I should not wound in ignorance, nor turn In foolish pride from those for whom I yearn. I should have kept nigh half the friends I've lost, And held for dearest those I wronged the most. Yet, when I see more cunning men evade With colder tact, the blunders that I made; Sometimes I wonder if the better part Is not still mine, who lacked their subtle art. For I have conned my book in harsher schools, And learned from struggling what they worked by rules; Learned--with some pain--more quickly to forgive My fellow-blunderers, while they learn to live; Learned--with some tears--to keep a steadfast mind, And think more kindly of my own poor kind. _He read the verses through, shaking his wig. 'Perhaps ... perhaps'--he whispered to himself, 'I'd better leave it to the will of God. They might upset my own. I do not think They'd understand. Jocelyn might, perhaps; And Dick, if only they were left alone. But Rosalind never; nor that nephew of mine, The witty politician. No. No. No. They'd say my mind was wandering, I'm afraid.' So, with a frozen face, reluctantly, He tossed his verses into the dying fire, And watched the sparks fly upward. There, at dawn, They found him, cold and stiff by the cold hearth, His amber snuff-box in his ivory hand. 'You see,'they said, 'he never needed friends. He had that curious antique frozen way. He had no heart--only an amber snuff-box. He died quite happily, taking a pinch of snuff.' His nephew, that engaging politician, Inherited the snuff-box, and remarked His epitaph should be 'Snuffed Out.'The clubs Laughed, and the statesman's reputation grew._