1、Seasons 四季Country Spring乡间春色One spring I went a walking tour in the country. It was a glorious spring. Not the sort of spring they give us in these miserable times, under this shameless government a mixture of east wind, blizzard, snow, rain, slush, fog, frost, hail, sleet and thunder-storms but a s
2、unny, blue-skied, joyous spring, such as we used to have regularly every year when I was a young man, and things were different.It was an exceptionally beautiful spring, even for those golden days: and as I wandered through the waking land, and saw the dawning of the coming green, and watched the bl
3、ush upon the hawthorn hedge, deepening each day beneath the kisses of the sun, and looked up at the proud old mother trees, dandling their myriad baby buds upon their strong fond arms, holding them high for the soft west wind to caress as he passed laughing by, and marked the primrose yellow creep a
4、cross the carpet of the woods, and saw the new flush of the field and saw the new light on the hills, and heard the new-found gladness of the birds, and heard form copse and farm and meadow the timid callings of the little new-born things, wondering to find themselves alive, and smelt the freshness
5、of the earth, and felt the promise in the air, and felt a strong hand in the wind, my spirit rose within me. Spring had come to me also, and stirred me with a strange new life, with a strange new hope. I, too, was part of nature, and it was spring! Tender leaves and blossoms were unfolding from my h
6、eart. Bright flowers of love and gratitude were opening round its roots. I felt new strength in all my limbs. New blood was pulsing through my veins. Nobler thoughts and nobler longings were throbbing through my brain.As I walked, Nature came and talked beside me, and showed me the world and myself,
7、 and the ways of God seemed clearer.(from Dreams by Jerome K. Jerome)shameless 不知羞耻的blizzard 暴风雪slush 雪水，半融雪hail 冰雹sleet 冻雨，雨夹雪dawning 开始出现（春意）blush 红色，红光hawthorn 山楂hedge 树篱dandle 娇养小孩myriad 无数，大量primrose 报春花creep 蔓延，开满flush 活力，茂盛copse 矮灌木丛gratitude 谢意，感谢vein 血管throb 跳动，震动Spring Walk春日漫步Ive walked t
8、o a hill mile from the house. Its not really a hill but a mountain slope that heaves up, turns sideways, and comes down again, straight down to a foot-wide creak. Every-thing I can see from here used to be a flatland covered with shallow water. “Used to be” means several hundred millions years ago,
9、and the land itself was not really “here” at all, but part of a continent floating near Bermuda. On the top is fin of rock, a marine deposition created during Jurassic times by small waves moving in and out slapping the shore.Ive come here for peace and quiet and to see whats going on in this seclud
10、ed valley, away from ranch work and sorting corrals, but what I get is a slap on the ass by a prehistoric wave, gains and losses in altitude and aridity, outcrops of mud composed of rotting volcanic ash that fell continuously for ten thousand years a hundred million years ago. The soils are a geolog
11、ic flag red, white, green, and gray. On one side of the hill, mountain mahogany gives off a scent like orange blossoms; on the other, colonies of sagebrush root wide in ground the color of Spanish roof tiles. And it still looks like the ocean to me. “How much truth can a man stand, sitting by the oc
12、ean, all that perpetual motion,” Mose Allison, the jazz singer, sings.The wind picks up and blusters. Its fat underbelly scrapes the uneven ground, twisting like taffy toward me, slips up over the mountain, and showers out across the Great Plains. The sea smell it carried all the way from Seattle ha
13、s long since been absorbed by pink grass the rotting granite that spills down the slopes of the Rockies. Somewhere over the Midwest the wind slows, tangling in the hair of hardwood forests, and finally drops into the corridors of the cities, pas Manhattans World Trade Center, ripping free again as i
14、t crosses the Atlantics green swell.Spring jitterbugs inside me. Spring is wind, symphonic and billowing. A dark cloud pops like a blood blister over me, letting hail down. It comes on a piece of wind that seems to have widened the sky, comes so the birds have something to fly on.(from Spring by Gee
15、tel Ehrlich)heave 起伏，隆起fin 鳍，鳍状物deposition 沉淀，沉积secluded 孤寂的，与世隔绝的altitude 高度，海拔mahogany 花梨木sagebrush 北美艾灌丛perpetual 永恒的，不变的buster 呼啸狂欢underbelly 下腹部scrape 刮擦，掠过，拂过taffy 太妃糖tangle 纠结，缠绕jitterbug 使激动不安，紧张billowing 翻腾的，汹涌的blister 水疱August八月August is a dramatic month. Humidity is a form of madness. Wri
16、ting is a form of suicide. The temptation to talk like this, in short clips, is overwhelming. Short sentences are like raindrops: splashy and desirable.August, the most complacent month. Laziness, humidity, and utter lack of thought are its chief characteristics. Sluggish and indolent we drag our bo
17、dies through its sweaty middle like primeval crawlers.I saw a guy, prostrate from heat, staring at an empty parking lot downtown. “There are more leaves on the trees this year,” he said. I looked at the expanse of steaming cement before us and agreed. That was an August encounter and that man an Aug
18、ust character. An ambassador of Humidity. The reason why so many people die in August is that nobody is really awake. All death has to do is pluck the unalert from the planet like overripe peaches.If you are poor and hot like me, one way to escape August is to visit showrooms. Not only are they air-
19、conditioned, they are educational. I went to an IBM computer showplace and a dear lady paraded me before the friendly pastels of a thousand keyboards. It was like ice cream.Looking over the Augusts of my life, I find all sorts of delirious phenomena. Once I was mugged in a hallway. I was too irritat
20、ed by the heat to pay. I screamed at the guy and he only took half the money. A few years ago, my wife produces a wonderful calendar full of useful and wonderful facts, as well as the birthdays of all our friends. I tried to talk her into leaving August out. When she wouldnt listen moved to August.
21、She caught me. I pleaded humidity. I dont think shes forgiven me yet.(from August b Andrei Condrescu )humidity 潮湿suicide 自杀temptation 诱惑complacent 懈怠的，懒散的sluggish 不太想动的，懒散的indolent 懒惰的，不积极的sweaty 出汗的primeval 原始的，远古的crawler 爬虫，蠕虫prostrate 无精打采的pluck 除去，消灭parade 带参观，行进delirious 疯狂的mug 从背后袭击并抢劫An Autum
22、n Day秋日掠影It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day, the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tendered kink had been nipped by the fros
23、ts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beach and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble-field.
24、The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cock-robin the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, w
25、ith its loud querulous note; and the twittering blackbirds flying the sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar bird, with its red-tipped wings and yellow-tipped tail, and its little monteiro cap of feathers; a
26、nd the blue-jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay lightblue coat and white under-clothes; screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove.(from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving)livery 服装，衣着beech 山毛榉hickory 山核
27、桃pensive 沉思的，忧郁的quail 北美鹑stubble-field 收割后（布满茬儿）的田地revelry 狂欢，喧闹flutter 振翅，展翼frolic 嬉戏，闹着玩stripling 年轻人，小伙子querulous 爱发牢骚的，抱怨的blackbird 黑鸟，乌鸦sable 深褐色的woodpecker 啄木鸟gorget （鸟）颈部色斑plumage 鸟的全身羽毛cedar bird 黄连鸟monteiro cap 有帽沿的圆猎帽blue-jay 有冠蓝背悭鸟coxcomb 纨绔子，花花公子A Winter Morning冬日之晨Day had broken cold an
28、d gray, extremely cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon River trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a vague and little-traveled trail led eastward through the timberland. It was a steep bank, and her paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking a
29、t his watch. It was nine oclock. There was no sum a clear day, and yet there was a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man. He was used to the lack of sun. it had been days since he had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more day
30、s must pass before that cheerful sphere would just peep above the skyline in the south and dip immediately from view.The man hung a look back along the way he had come. The Yukon River lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice. On top of this ice were as many feet of snow. It was all pure w
31、hite, rolling in gentle waves where the ice-jams of the freeze-up had formed. North and south, as far as his eye could see, it was unbroken white, except for a dark line that curved and twisted form the south and away into the north. This dark line was the trail the main trail led south five hundred
32、 miles to Chilocoot Pass and salt water, and tat led north seventy miles to Dawson, and still on to the north to St. Michael on the Bering sea, twenty-five hundred miles more.But all this the mysterious, far-reaching trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness an
33、d weirdness of it all made no impression on the man. It was not because he was used to it. He was a newcomer in the land and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination.(from To Build a Fire by Jack London)trail 小径，小道timberland 林区subtle 微妙的sphere 球体，圆体skyline
34、地平线ice-jam 流冰堆积curve 依曲线行进far-reaching 延伸到远方的weirdness 离奇怪诞A Winter Night Journey冬夜之旅I seem to recall best a journey we made by tram one winter night.We were going to visit my Granny at Westoe, and I was very excited, because an evening excursion was something quite unheard of for me. It had been ra
35、ining; the gas lamps lit the gleaming pavements and cobbles with a doubled radiance. The shaking tram wires were sending down showers of white raindrops. Everything in the ram seemed fresh and glittering. The breezy windows sparkled with long zigzags of rain and the passing street lamp flared gorgeo
36、usly through the panels of blue and yellow and ruby glass. Outside, it was cold and windy, and we could feel the gale buffeting against the side of the tram, making it sway and lurch ore than usual, and throwing the passengers of song, and the fresh, clean, cold sea-wind was blowing right through th
37、e upper deck. Above, a high half-moon seemed to be skidding along on its back through piles of black, white-lined rags. It was a wild night, with a sense of magic in the offing. The people in the tram did not seem like ordinary mortals; a kind of exhilarating gaiety had seized them, and it seemed to
38、 lighten their bodies and illuminate their faces. At times I was sure we were really flying.(from The Only Child by James Kirkup)recall 回忆，想起excursion 短途旅行gleaming 发微光的，闪烁的cobble 大鹅卵石，圆石glittering 闪闪发光的，闪烁的breezy 有微风的，通风的zigzag 锯齿形，弯弯曲曲flare 闪耀（光芒）gorgeously 灿烂地，华丽地buffet （风、雨）连续打击snatch 片段，一阵阵的歌声offing 视野范围内的远处海面mortal 凡人exhilarating 令人振奋的，使人高兴的gaiety 快乐，高兴，喜庆illuminate 照亮，照明
