【有声英语文学名著】回头望望昨天

Hour in the Sun 

 by John H. Bradley

 

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

                                                                                          ------HenryDavid Thoreau

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

 Woodchoppersand the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boycould go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat, lazilydrifting 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 idlenesswas the most attractive and productive business.” 

Itoo was once 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 pondchanged. The boy, who is now a man, no longer finds much time for idledrifting. The pond has been annexed¹ by a great city. The swamps where heronsonce hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water liliesquietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short, everything that theboy loved no longer exists – except in the man’s memory of it.

 Somepeople insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we wouldbe if we really lived by that rule! So much of what we do today is frivolousand futile² and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow neverhappens.

 Thepast is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession; the memoriesthat give meaning and depth to our lives.

 Thosewho truly treasure the past will not bemoan³ the passing of the good old days,because days enshrined in memory are never lost. Death itself is powerless tostill a remembered voice or erase⁴ a remembered smile. And for one boy who isnow a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change, where he canstill spend a quiet hour in the sun. 

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 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。

3 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。

4 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。