阳光下的时光

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

“……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

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

写这句话时，梭罗想起孩提时代的瓦尔登湖。

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

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！”

I too was a boy in love with a pond, rich in sunny hours andsummer days. Sun and summer are still what they always were, butthe boy and the pond changed. The boy, who is now a man, no longerfind much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed by agreat city. The swamps where herons once hunted are now drained andfilled with houses. The bay where water lilies quietly floated isnow a harbor for motor boats. In short, everything that the boyloved no longer exists----except in the man's memory of it.

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。

Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But howmuch poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule! So much ofwhat we do today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten. Somuch 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。

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

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。

Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing ofthe good old days, because days enshrined in memory are never lost.Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase aremembered smile. And for one boy who is now a man, there is a pondwhich neither time nor tide can change, where he can still spend aquite hour in the sun.