介绍:
Walden [ˈwɔldən] (Issue 177)
14. Former Inhabitants; & Winter Visitors(8)
[12] Now only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings, with buried cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble-berries, hazel-bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny sward there; some pitch pine or gnarled oak occupies what was the chimney nook, and a sweet-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where the door-stone was. Sometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed; now dry and tearless grass; or it was covered deep - not to be discovered till some late day - with a flat stone under the sod, when the last of the race departed. What a sorrowful act must that be - the covering up of wells! coincident with the opening of wells of tears. These cellar dents, like deserted fox burrows, old holes, are all that is left where once were the stir and bustle of human life, and "fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," in some form and dialect or other were by turns discussed. But all I can learn of their conclusions amounts to just this, that "Cato and Brister pulled wool"; which is about as edifying as the history of more famous schools of philosophy.
[13] Still grows the vivacious[vɪˈveɪʃəs] lilac[ˈlaɪlək] a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children's hands, in front-yard plots - now standing by wallsides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests; - the last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think that the puny[ˈpjuːnɪ] slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them, and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown man's garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died - blossoming as fair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, civil, cheerful lilac[ˈlaɪlək] colors.
现在只有大地上一个凹痕标明这些住所的位置，埋了的地下室石头，而草莓、山竹果、心形果、榛丛和漆树在那里向阳的草地生长；一些油松或多结的橡树占据着曾经是烟囱的角落，一株芳香的水白桦，也许，在门口的石头那里招摇。有时水井的凹处依稀可见，那里曾有泉水渗出；现在是无泪的干草；或者井被深深遮盖——不会被发现直到很晚的某天——在草皮下盖着一块扁石，直到最后的族群离开。那是一件多么悲伤的行为啊——盖上那些井！这些地下室的凹处，像狐狸刨出又遗弃的旧洞，就是人类激动和热闹生活的唯一遗留，而且“宿命、自由意志、绝对的先见之明” 【原注：自弥尔顿的《失乐园》。第二部，第560行。】，以某种形式和方言或其他在依次被探讨。而我唯一从中得来的结论都归结于“卡托和布里斯特扯羊毛”；那是和史上更著名哲学流派同样有教益。
在门后，而且门楣和窗框都已经不见，一代紫丁香仍在生机勃勃的成长，年年春天弥漫它们那芬芳的花，被沉思的旅人采摘；曾被孩子们的手种植和照看，在前院的区域——现在的墙边站立着退休下来的草地，让位给了新生的森林；最后的那一血统，那一家族的最后幸存者。那暗淡了的孩子们不会想到这些不起眼的东西仅睁着双眼，那是他们在房屋的阴影下钉在地上而且每天用水把它们浇灌，会自己生根而且活过了他们，背后的房子本身遮蔽它，成长为成熟的花园和果园，对那孤寂的漫游者在他们成长和死亡半个世纪以后，娓娓来讲述他们的故事——花开依旧美丽，花香依旧芬芳，宛若第一个春天。我注意到它那依旧温柔、文雅、愉快的丁香的颜色。
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