與青春有關的英語散文

  有感於青春常在

  No young man believes he will ever die. It was a saying of my brother's, and a fine one.

  There is a feeling of Eternity in youth, which makes us amend for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortal Gods. One half of time indeed is flown — the other half remains in store for us with all its countless treasures, for there is no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make the coming age our own —

  The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us.

  Death, old age, are words without a meaning that pass by us like the idea air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still be liable to them — we “bear a charmed life”, which laughs to scorn all such sickly fancies. As in setting out on delightful journey, we strain our eager gaze forward —

  Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail!

  And see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as we advance. So, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our inclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and it seems that we can go on so forever. We look round in a new world, full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in ourselves all the vigor and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were abstractedness of our feelings in youth, that ***so to speak*** identifies us with nature, and ***our experience being slight and our passions strong*** deludes us into a belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lives connexion with existence we fondly flatter ourselves is an indissoluble and lasting union — a honeymoon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward fancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the universe around us — we quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the more — objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the strong of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.

  年輕人不相信自己會死。這是我哥哥的話,可算得一句妙語。青春有一種永生之感——它能彌補一切。人在青年時代好像一尊永生的神明。誠然,生命的一半已經消逝,但蘊藏著不盡財富的另一半還有所保留,我們對它也抱著無窮的希望和幻想。未來的時代完全屬於我們——

  無限遼闊的遠景在我們面前展現。

  死亡,老年,不過是空話,毫無意義;我們聽了,只當耳邊風,全不放在心上。這些事,別人也許經歷過,或者可能要承受——但我們自己“冥冥中有神保佑”,對於諸如此類脆弱的念頭,統統付之輕蔑的一笑。像是剛剛走上愉快的旅程,極目遠眺——

  向遠方的美景歡呼!

  ——此時,但覺好風光應接不暇,而且,前程更有美不勝收的新鮮景緻。在這生活的開端,我們聽任自己的志趣馳騁,放手給它們一切滿足的機會。到此為止,我們還沒有碰上過什麼障礙,也沒有感覺到什麼疲憊,因此覺得還可以一直這樣向前走去,直到永遠。我們看到四周一派新天地——生機盎然,變動不居,日新月異;我們覺得自己活力充盈,精神飽滿,可與宇宙並駕齊驅。而且,眼前也無任何跡象可以證明,在大自然的發展過程中,我們自己也會落伍,衰老,進入墳墓。由於年輕人天真單純,可以說是茫然無知,因而將自己跟大自然劃上等號;並且,由於經驗少而感情盛,誤以為自己也能和大自然一樣永世長存。我們一廂情願,痴心妄想,竟把自己在世上的暫時棲身,當作千古不變、萬事長存的結合,好像沒有冷淡、爭執、離別的蜜月。像嬰兒帶著微笑入睡,我們躺在用自己編織成的搖籃裡,讓大千世界的萬籟之聲催哄我們安然入夢;我們急切切、興沖沖地暢飲生命之杯,怎麼也不會飲幹,反而好像永遠是滿滿欲溢;森羅永珍紛至沓來,各種慾望隨之而生,使我們騰不出工夫想死亡。

  青春物語

  Man's youth is a wonderful thing: it is so full of anguish and of magic and he never comes to know it as it is, until it has gone from him forever. It is the thing he cannot bear to lose, it is the thing whose passing he watches with infinite sorrow and regret, it is the thing whose loss with a sad and secret joy, the thing he would never willingly relive again, could it be restored to him by any magic.

  青春奇妙無窮,充滿魅力,充滿痛楚。青春年少的時候根本不知青春為何物,直到青春一去不復返了才對青春有了真正的認識。誰都想讓青春永駐,不忍青春離去; 眼睜睜地看著青春流逝,心中會湧起無窮的憂傷和惋惜;青春的失去是人們永遠感到悲哀的事;青春的失去是人們真正覺得悲喜交集的事;即便奇蹟出現青春復甦, 誰都不會心甘情願重度青春的歲月。

  Why is this? The reason is that the strange and bitter miracle of life is nowhere else so evident as in our youth. And what is the essence of that strange and bitter miracle of life which we feel so poignant , so unutterable, with such a bitter pain and joy, when we are young? It is this: that being rich, we are so poor; that being mighty, we can yet have nothing; that seeing, breathig, smelling, tasting all around us the impossible wealth and glory of this earth, feeling with an intolerable certitude that the whole structure of the enchanted life – the most fortunate, wealthy, good, and happy life that any man has ever known – is ours – is ours at once, immediately and forever, the moment that we choose to take a step, or stretch a hand, or say a word- we yet know that we can really keep, hold, take, and possess forever- nothing. All passes; nothing lasts: the moment that we put our hand upon it , it melts away like smoke, is gone forever, and the snake is eating at our heart again; we see then what we are and what our lives must come to.

  為什麼如此?因為在青春時代,生活充滿了奇特而辛酸的不可思議的事。我們在青春年少時帶著悲喜交集的心情,十分強烈而不可名狀地感受到人生的奇特辛酸、不 可思議的經歷。其實質是什麼呢?其實質是這樣的:青春年少的時候,雖然殷實富足,卻非常貧窮;雖然力氣強大,卻一無所有;世間的富貴榮華觸目皆是,簡直可 以呼吸到,聞到嗅到,還可以品嚐到,心中的自信按捺不住,深切地感受到整個被陶醉了的生活----人類迄今為止所知道的最幸運、最富有的美好幸福的生活, 只要我們決定向前邁步,奮發努力,便立即歸我們所有了,並將永遠屬於我們。然而,我們知道,我們真的永遠不能抓到什麼,永遠不能獲得什麼,永遠不能佔有什 麼。一切匆匆過去,蕩然無存。我們一出手它就煙消雲散,飄然而去,一去不復返了。於是,心中泛起陣陣隱痛,看到了自己真實的面孔,看到了自己未來生活的必 然走向。

  A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing. He hurls the great shoulder of his strength forever against phantasmalbarriers, he is a wave whose power explodes in lost mid – oceans under timeless skies, here-aches out to grip a fume of painted smoke, he wants all, feels the thirst and power foreverything, and finally gets nothing. In the end, he is destroyed by his own strength, devoured by his own hunger, impoverished by his own wealth. Thoughtless of money or the accumulation of material possessions, he is none the less defeated in the end by his own greed a greed that makes the avarice of King Midas seem paltry by comparison.

  青年人非常堅強,狂熱自信,但容易迷惘混沌,雖然機緣無數,卻把握不住,雖然身強體壯,試圖衝破重重虛幻的屏障,卻如同一個波浪,最終還是無力地消失在曠 遠浩淼的大海中央,他伸出手想要抓住斑斕的雲煙,他想得到世間的萬物,渴望主宰一切,最終卻是一無所獲。最後,他被自己的力量所毀滅,被自己的飢餓所吞 食,被自己的財富弄得貧窮潦倒。他對金錢或財富的積累不以為意漫不經心,然而最終還是被自己的貪慾所吞噬。

  And that is the reason why, when youth is gone, every man will look back upon that period of his life with infinite sorrow and regret. It is the bitter sorrow and regret of a man who knows that once he had a great talent and wasted it , of a man who knows that once he had a great treasure and got nothing from it , of a man who knows that he had strength enough for everything and never used it.

  青春消逝,驀然回首,無論是誰,心中都會充滿無盡的憂傷,充滿無窮的懊悔。曾經才智卓越,卻白白浪費了,曾經財富殷實,卻一無所有,曾經本事高強,卻從未利用。一個認識到自己失落青春的人回憶起來總是充滿悲傷和懊悔。

  Youth《青春》

  Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

  青春不是年華,而是心境;青春不是桃面、丹脣、柔膝,而是深沉的意志,恢巨集的想象,炙熱的感情;青春是生命的深泉在湧流。

  Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

  青春氣貫長虹,勇銳蓋過怯弱,進取壓倒苟安。如此銳氣,二十後生而有之,六旬男子則更多見。年歲有加,並非垂老,理想丟棄,方墮暮年。

  Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spring back to dust.

  歲月悠悠,衰微只及肌膚;熱忱拋卻,頹廢必致靈魂。憂煩,惶恐,喪失自信,定使心靈扭曲,意氣如灰。

  Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

  無論年屆花甲,抑或二八芳齡,心中皆有生命之歡樂,奇蹟之誘惑,孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆有一臺天線,只要你從天上人間接受美好、希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量的訊號,你就青春永駐,風華常存。

  When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.