精美英文欣赏:阳光下的时光

Hour in the Sun

John H.Bradley

“…I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days.”----- Henry David Thoreau.

When Thoreau wrote that line, he was thinking of the Walden. Pond he knew as a boy.

Woodchoppers and the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat, lazily drifting from shore to shore while the loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days “when idleness was the most attractive and productive business.”

I too was a boy in love with a pond, rich in sunny hours and summer days. Sun and summer are still what they always were, but the boy and the pond changed. The boy, who is now a man, no longer find much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed¹ by a great city.

The swamps where herons once hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short, everything that the boy loved no longer exists----except in the man's memory of it.

Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule! So much of what we do today is frivolous² and futile³ and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.

The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession: the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.

Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan⁴ the passing of the good old days, because days enshrined in memory are never lost.

Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase⁵ a remembered smile. And for one boy who is now a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change, where he can still spend a quite hour in the sun.

阳光下的时光

约翰·布莱德利

“……我虽然不富甲天下，却拥有无数个艳阳天和夏日。”----亨利·大卫·梭罗

写这句话时，梭罗想起孩提时代的瓦尔登湖。

当时伐木者和火车尚未严重破坏湖畔的美丽景致。小男孩可以走向湖中，仰卧小舟。自一岸缓缓漂向另一岸，周遭有鸟儿戏水，燕子翻飞。梭罗喜欢回忆这样的艳阳天和夏日，“慵懒是最迷人也是最具生产力的事情！”

我也曾经是热爱湖塘的小男孩，拥有无数个艳阳天与夏日。如今阳光、夏日依旧，男孩和湖塘却已改变。那男孩已长大成人，不再有那么多时间泛舟湖上。而湖塘也为大城市所并。曾有苍鹭觅食的沼泽，如今已枯竭殆尽，上面盖满了房舍。睡莲静静漂浮的湖湾。现在成了汽艇的避风港。总之，男孩所爱的一切已不复存在----只留在人们的回忆中。

有些人坚持认为只有今日和明日才是重要的，可是如果真的照此生活，我们将是何其可怜！许多今日我们做的事徒劳不足取的，很快就会被忘记。许多我们期待明天将要做的事却从来没有发生过。

过去是一所银行。我们将最可贵的财产---记忆珍藏其中。记忆赐予我们生命的意义和深度。

真正珍惜过去的人，不会悲叹旧日美好时光的逝去。因为藏于记忆中的时光永不流失。死亡本身无法止住一个记忆中的声音，或擦除一个记忆中的微笑。对现已长大成人的那个男孩来说，那儿将有一个湖塘不会因时间和潮汐而改变，可以让他继续在阳光下享受安静时光。

1 annexed   

[法] 附加的，附属的

参考例句：

• Germany annexed Austria in 1938. 1938年德国吞并了奥地利。
• The outlying villages were formally annexed by the town last year. 那些偏远的村庄于去年正式被并入该镇。

2 frivolous   

adj.轻薄的；轻率的

参考例句：

• This is a frivolous way of attacking the problem.这是一种轻率敷衍的处理问题的方式。
• He spent a lot of his money on frivolous things.他在一些无聊的事上花了好多钱。

3 futile   

adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的

参考例句：

• They were killed,to the last man,in a futile attack.因为进攻失败，他们全部被杀，无一幸免。
• Their efforts to revive him were futile.他们对他抢救无效。

4 bemoan   

v.悲叹，哀泣，痛哭；惋惜，不满于

参考例句：

• Purists bemoan the corruption of the language.主张语文纯正的人哀叹语言趋于不纯。
• Don't bemoan anything or anyone that you need to leave behind.不要再去抱怨那些你本该忘记的人或事。

5 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。