欧洲网（http://www.ouzhou.cc）英语学习：英语经典散文：阳光下的时光in sunny hours and summer days　"...I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days."-Henry David Thoreau.“……我虽然不是富甲天下，却拥有无数个艳阳天和夏日。”——亨利·大卫·梭罗
 

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

　　写这句话时，梭罗想起了孩提时代的瓦尔登湖。
 

　　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."

　　那时候，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，背靠小舟，自一岸缓缓漂向另一岸，周围有鸟儿戏水，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吸引力的事情!”
 

　　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 finds much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed by a great city.

　　我曾经也是热爱池塘的小男孩，拥有无数个艳阳天与夏日。如今阳光、夏日依旧，但男孩和池塘却已改变。男孩已经长大成人，不再有那么多时间泛舟湖上，而池塘也为大城市结合。
 

　　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.

　　曾有苍鹭觅食的沼泽，现如今已枯竭殆尽，上面盖满了房舍。曾有睡莲静静漂浮的湖面，现如今已成了摩托艇的避风港。总之，男孩所爱的一切都已不复存在——只留在人们的回忆中。
 

　　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 frivolous and futile and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.

　　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!许多我们今日做的事都是琐碎无聊的，而且很快就会被忘记。许多我们期待明日要做的事却从来没有发生过。