活動(dòng)和休憩。約翰·拉斯金
About the river of human life there is a wintry wind, though a heavenly sunshine;
在人類的生命長河里,始終存在一股凜冽的風(fēng),盡管蒼穹陽光明媚。
the iris colors its agitation, the frost fixes upon its repose.
彩虹在搖動(dòng)中變換著色彩,冰霜凝住了它的安寧。
Let us beware that our rest become not the rest of stones,
我們要明白,我們的休憩不會(huì)像石頭那樣一動(dòng)不動(dòng),
which, so long as they are tempest-tossed and thunderstricken, maintain their majesty;
只要它們能夠忍受暴風(fēng)雨的肆虐和雷電的鞭打,仍然不失其莊嚴(yán)。
but when the stream is silent and the storm passed, suffer the grass to cover them, and are plowed into the dust.
但是,當(dāng)小溪靜謐,風(fēng)暴過后,草就會(huì)蔓延而至,覆蓋在它們身上,耕犁所至皆為塵土。
Time and Change. By Sir Humphry Davy
時(shí)間和改變。漢弗萊·戴維
Time is almost a human word, and Change entirely a human idea;
有一個(gè)人類差不多天天掛在嘴邊上的字眼,改變完全是人類的主觀想法。
in the system of nature, we should rather say progress than change.
在自然界,我們說得更多的是進(jìn)步,而不是改變。
The sun appears to sink in the ocean in darkness, but it rises in another hemisphere;
太陽似乎湮沒于大海黑暗的盡端,但卻升起于另一個(gè)半球。
the ruins of a city fall, but they are often used to form more magnificent structures:
一座城市盡成廢墟,但是通常會(huì)形成更為壯觀的建筑景象。
even when they are destroyed so as to produce only dust, Nature asserts her empire over them;
甚至當(dāng)這些建筑被摧毀時(shí),只不過化為塵土而已。大自然聲稱它的帝國必須覆蓋在這些建筑之上,
and the vegetable world rises in constant youth, in a period of annual successions, by the labors of man — providing food, vitality, and beauty
而年景交替之間,在人們辛勤勞作之下,綠色植物世界永遠(yuǎn)煥發(fā)生機(jī)——提供食物、生機(jī)和美景
upon the wrecks of monuments which were raised for the purposes of glory, but which are now applied to objects of utility.
在這些紀(jì)念物的殘?jiān)珨啾谏希瑸榱藰s耀的目的而茁壯成長,但是現(xiàn)在這些建筑物則被用于公益事業(yè)。