Читать книгу DALE CARNEGIE Premium Collection - Dale Carnegie - Страница 15

See him there, cold and gray,

Watch him as he tries to play;

No, he doesn't know the way—

He began to learn too late.

She's a grim old hag, is Fate,

For she let him have his pile,

Smiling to herself the while,

Knowing what the cost would be,

When he'd found the Golden Key.

Multimillionaire is he,

Many times more rich than we;

But at that I wouldn't trade

With the bargain that he made.

Came here many years ago,

Not a person did he know;

Had the money-hunger bad—

Mad for money, piggish mad;

Didn't let a joy divert him,

Didn't let a sorrow hurt him,

Let his friends and kin desert him,

While he planned and plugged and hurried

On his quest for gold and power.

Every single wakeful hour

With a money thought he'd dower;

All the while as he grew older,

And grew bolder, he grew colder.

And he thought that some day

He would take the time to play;

But, say—he was wrong.

Life's a song;

In the spring

Youth can sing and can fling;

But joys wing

When we're older,

Like birds when it's colder.

The roses were red as he went rushing by,

And glorious tapestries hung in the sky,

And the clover was waving

'Neath honey-bees' slaving;

A bird over there

Roundelayed a soft air;

But the man couldn't spare

Time for gathering flowers,

Or resting in bowers,

Or gazing at skies

That gladdened the eyes.

So he kept on and swept on

Through mean, sordid years.

Now he's up to his ears

In the choicest of stocks.

He owns endless blocks

Of houses and shops,

And the stream never stops

Pouring into his banks.

I suppose that he ranks

Pretty near to the top.

What I have wouldn't sop

His ambition one tittle;

And yet with my little

I don't care to trade

With the bargain he made.

Just watch him to-day—

See him trying to play.

He's come back for blue skies.

But they're in a new guise—

Winter's here, all is gray,

The birds are away,

The meadows are brown,

The leaves lie aground,

And the gay brook that wound

With a swirling and whirling

Of waters, is furling

Its bosom in ice.

And he hasn't the price,

With all of his gold,

To buy what he sold.

He knows now the cost

Of the spring-time he lost,

Of the flowers he tossed

From his way,

And, say,

He'd pay

Any price if the day

Could be made not so gray.

He can't play.

—Herbert Kaufman. Used by permission of Everybody's Magazine.

Change of Tempo Prevents Monotony

The canary in the cage before the window is adding to the beauty and charm of his singing by a continual change of tempo. If King Solomon had been an orator he undoubtedly would have gathered wisdom from the song of the wild birds as well as from the bees. Imagine a song written with but quarter notes. Imagine an auto with only one speed.