跟希哥学英语 第79期:马群

 　　The Horses

　　Edwin Muir

　　Barely a twelvemonth after

　　The seven days war that put the world to sleep,

　　Late in the evening the strange horses came.

　　By then we had made our covenant¹ with silence,

　　But in the first few days it was so still

　　We listened to our breathing and were afraid.

　　On the second day

　　The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.

　　On the third day a warship² passed us, heading north,

　　Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day

　　A plane plunged³ over us into the sea. Thereafter

　　Nothing. The radios dumb;

　　And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,

　　And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms

　　All over the world. But now if they should speak,

　　If on a sudden they should speak again,

　　If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,

　　We would not listen, we would not let it bring

　　马群

　　That old bad world that swallowed its children quick

　　At one great gulp⁴. We would not have it again.

　　Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,

　　Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,

　　And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.

　　The tractors lie about our fields; at evening

　　They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.

　　We leave them where they are and let them rust⁵:

　　'They'll molder away and be like other loam⁶.'

　　We make our oxen drag our rusty⁷ plows⁸,

　　Long laid aside. We have gone back

　　Far past our fathers' land.

　　And then, that evening

　　Late in the summer the strange horses came.

　　We heard a distant tapping on the road,

　　A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again

　　And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.

　　We saw the heads

　　Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.

　　We had sold our horses in our fathers' time

　　To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us

　　As fabulous⁹ steeds set on an ancient shield.

　　Or illustrations in a book of knights¹⁰.

　　We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,

　　Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent

　　By an old command to find our whereabouts

　　And that long-lost archaic¹¹ companionship.

　　In the first moment we had never a thought

　　That they were creatures to be owned and used.

　　Among them were some half a dozen colts

　　Dropped in some wilderness¹² of the broken world,

　　Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.

　　Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads

　　But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.

　　Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

1 covenant   

n.盟约，契约；v.订盟约

参考例句：

• They refused to covenant with my father for the property.他们不愿与我父亲订立财产契约。
• The money was given to us by deed of covenant.这笔钱是根据契约书付给我们的。

2 warship   

n.军舰，战舰

参考例句：

• He is serving on a warship in the Pacific.他在太平洋海域的一艘军舰上服役。
• The warship was making towards the pier.军舰正驶向码头。

3 plunged   

v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• The train derailed and plunged into the river. 火车脱轨栽进了河里。
• She lost her balance and plunged 100 feet to her death. 她没有站稳，从100英尺的高处跌下摔死了。

4 gulp   

vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽

参考例句：

• She took down the tablets in one gulp.她把那些药片一口吞了下去。
• Don't gulp your food,chew it before you swallow it.吃东西不要狼吞虎咽，要嚼碎了再咽下去。

5 rust   

n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退

参考例句：

• She scraped the rust off the kitchen knife.她擦掉了菜刀上的锈。
• The rain will rust the iron roof.雨水会使铁皮屋顶生锈。

6 loam   

n.沃土

参考例句：

• Plant the seeds in good loam.把种子种在好的壤土里。
• One occupies relatively dry sandy loam soils.一个则占据较干旱的沙壤土。

7 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

8 plows   

n.犁( plow的名词复数 )；犁型铲雪机v.耕( plow的第三人称单数 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• Alex and Tony were turning awkward hands to plows and hoe handles. 亚历克斯和托尼在犁耙等农活方面都几乎变成新手了。
• Plows are still pulled by oxen in some countries. 在一些国家犁头仍由牛拖拉。

9 fabulous   

adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的

参考例句：

• We had a fabulous time at the party.我们在晚会上玩得很痛快。
• This is a fabulous sum of money.这是一笔巨款。

10 knights   

骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马

参考例句：

• stories of knights and fair maidens 关于骑士和美女的故事
• He wove a fascinating tale of knights in shining armour. 他编了一个穿着明亮盔甲的骑士的迷人故事。

11 archaic   

adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的

参考例句：

• The company does some things in archaic ways,such as not using computers for bookkeeping.这个公司有些做法陈旧，如记账不使用电脑。
• Shaanxi is one of the Chinese archaic civilized origins which has a long history.陕西省是中国古代文明发祥之一，有悠久的历史。

12 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。