经典英语美文分享

　　经典英语美文： If I knew（假如我知道）

　　If I knew it would be the last time I'd see you fall asleep,

　　假如我知道这是最后一次看到你进入梦乡，

　　I would tuck you in more tightly and "pray the lord , your soul to keep".

　　我会给你掖紧被子，并“祈求上的，让你的灵魂常在”。

　　If I knew it would be the last time I'd see you walk out the door,

　　假如我知道这将是你最后一次迈出家门，

　　I would give you a hug and kiss you, and call you back for more.

　　我会亲吻你，拥抱你，一遍遍地唤着你回来。

　　If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise.

　　假如我知道这将是最后一次听到你在赞扬中高亢的声音，

　　I would video tape each action and word , so I could play them back day after day.

　　我会记录下你每一句言语，每一个动作，这样我可以日日地不停播放。

　　If I knew it would be the last time I could spare an extra minute or so to stop and say"I love you, "instead of assuming you would know I do.

　　假如我知道这将是最后一次说“我爱你”，我会留出时间或者停下手头的工作告诉你，而不会自负的认为你已经知道。

　　If I knew it would be the last time I would be there so share you day,

　　假如我知道这是最后的光阴，我会在你身边。

　　I'm sure you'll have so many more, so I can let just this one slip away.

　　我总以为你还有很多的时光，所以总让这天静静地流走。

　　For surely there's slways tomorrow to make up for an oversight, and certainly there's another chance to make everthing right.  因为我总认为还有明天可以去弥补遗漏，我们还有下一次机会会使所有的事变得美好。

　　There will always be another day, to say "I love you", and certainly there's another chance to say our"anything I can do?"

　　总想还有另一个时刻，说“我爱你”，也总认为还有下一个机会，去说“你有什么要帮忙的'吗？”

　　But, just in case I might be wrong, and today is all I get,  然而，万一我错了，我只能拥有今天，

　　I'd like to say how much I love you, and I hope we never forget.

　　我好想说一千一万遍“我爱你”，让我们永生不忘。

　　Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike, and today may be the last chance you get to hold your love tight.

　　明天从没给任何人承诺，不过是年轻人还是老年人。今天也许是你最后一次机会紧紧拥抱你的爱人。

　　So, if you'er waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today?

　　所以，如果你等待明天，为什么不在今天行动？

　　For, if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day...  因为，如果明天用不到来，你必将为今天而后悔……

　　That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a huge, or a kiss, and you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish.

　　你后悔没有抽出更多的时间去拥抱、微笑、亲吻。后悔自己太过忙碌，没有能帮别人实现他最后的心愿。

　　that you love them very much and you'll always hold them dear.  所以，紧紧拥抱你的爱人吧，就在今天，对他们耳语，你深深的爱他们，并永远珍惜他们。

　　Take time to say"I'm sorry", "please forgive me", "thank you"or""it's okay.

　　抽出一些时间说“对不起”、“请原谅”、“谢谢”或者“没关系”吧。

　　And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today.

　　即使明天永远不能到来，你也不会为今天而后悔。

　　经典英语美文： A father and a son（父子俩）

　　Passing through the Atlanta airport one morning, I caught one of those trains that take travelers from the main terminal to their boarding gates. Free, sterile and impersonal, the trains run back and forth all day long. Not many people consider them fun, but on this Saturday I heard laughter.

　　一天早晨去亚特兰大机场，我看见一辆列车载载着旅客从航空集散站抵达登记处。这类免费列车每天单调、无味地往返其间，没人觉得有趣。但这个周六我却听到了笑声。

　　At the front of the first car – looking out the window at the track that lay ahead – were a man and his son.

　　在头节车厢的最前面，坐着一个男人和他的儿子。他们正透过窗户观赏着一直往前延伸的铁道。

　　We had just stopped to let off passengers, and the doors wee closing again. “Here we go! Hold on to me tight!” the father said. The boy, about five years old, made sounds of sheer delight.

　　我们停下来等候旅客下车，之后，车门关上了。“走吧。拉紧我!”父亲说。儿子大约5岁吧，一路喜不自禁。

　　I know we’re supposed to avoid making racial distinctions these days, so I hope no one will mind if I mention that most people on the train were white, dressed for business trips or vacations – and that the father and son were black, dressed in clothes that were just about as inexpensive as you can buy.

　　车上坐的多半是衣冠楚楚，或公差或度假的白人，只有这对黑人父子穿着朴素简单。我知道如今我们不该种族歧视，我希望我这样描述没人介意。

　　“Look out there!” the father said to his son. “See that pilot? I bet he’s walking to his plane.” The son craned his neck to look.

　　“快看!”父亲对儿子说：“看见那位飞行员了吗?我敢肯定是去开飞机的。”儿子伸长脖子看。

　　As I got off, I remembered some thing I’d wanted to buy in the terminal. I was early for my flight, so I decided to go back.

　　下了车后我突然想起还得在航空集散站买点东西。离起飞时间还早，于是我决定再乘车回去。

　　I did – and just as I was about to reboard the train for my gate, I saw that the man and his son had returned too. I realized then that they hadn’t been heading for a flight, but had just been riding the shuttle.

　　正准备上车的时候，我看到那对父子也来了。我意识到他们不是来乘飞机的，而是特意来坐区间列车的。

　　“I want to ride some more!”

　　“我还想再坐一会儿!”

　　“More?” the father said, mock-exasperated but clearly pleased. “You’re not tired?”

　　“再坐一会儿!”父亲嗔怪模仿着儿子的语调，“你还不累?”

　　“This is fun!” his son said.

　　“真好玩!”儿子说。

　　“All right,” the father replied, and when a door opened we all got on.

　　“好吧，”父亲说。车门开了，我们都上了车。

　　There are parents who can afford to send their children to Europe or Disneyland, and the children turn out rotten. There are parents who live in million-dollar houses and give their children cars and swimming pools, yet something goes wrong. Rich and poor, black and white, so much goes wrong so often.

　　我们很多父母有能力送孩子去欧洲，去狄斯尼乐园，可孩子还是堕落了。很多父母住豪华别墅，孩子有车有游泳池，可孩子还是学坏了。富人、穷人，黑人、白人，那么多人都轻易学坏了。

　　“Where are all these people going, Daddy?” the son asked.

　　“爸爸，这些人去哪?”儿子问。

　　“All over the world,” came the reply. The other people in the air port wee leaving for distant destinations or arriving at the ends of their journeys. The father and son, though, were just riding this shuttle together, making it exciting, sharing each other’s company.

　　“世界各地。”父亲回答。机场来来往往的人流或准备远行，或刚刚归来。这对父子却在乘坐区间列车，享受着父子间的亲情与陪伴。

　　So many troubles in this country – crime, the murderous soullessness that seems to be taking over the lives of many young people, the lowering of educational standards, the increase in vile obscenities in public, the disappearance of simple civility. So many questions about what to do. Here was a father who cared about spending the day with his son and who had come up with this plan on a Saturday morning.

　　我们正面临许多问题：犯罪、越来越多的年轻人变得冷漠无情、文化水平下降、公共场合卑劣猥亵上升、起码的礼貌丧失，等等。我们有那么多的问题要处理。而这里。这位父亲却很在意花上一天陪伴儿子，并在这样一个星期六的早上，提出这个计划。

　　The answer is so simple: parents who care enough to spend time, and to pay attention and to try their best. It doesn’t cost a cent, yet it is the most valuable thing in the world.

　　其实答案很简单：父母愿意花时间，愿意关注，愿意尽心尽职。这不要花一分钱，可这却是世间无价之宝。

　　The train picked up speed, and the father pointed something out, and the boy laughed again.

　　火车加速了。父亲指着窗外说着什么，儿子直乐。

　　英语经典美文3：生活的艺术

　　The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it this way: “A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.”

　　生活的艺术在于懂得什么时候追求，什么时候放弃。因为生活就是一个矛盾体：它要我们紧紧抓住它赐予我们的生命之礼，然后最终又让它们从我们手中跑掉。老先生们说：“人们紧握着拳头来到这个世界上，离开这个世界时却摊开了双手。”

　　Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God’s own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.

　　当然我们应该紧紧把握生活，因为它美妙得不可思议，充满了从上帝的每个毛孔里蹦出来的美。我们都清楚这一点，但我们常常只有在回首往事时才会想去过去，才会突然意识到过去永远地消逝了，才会承认这个道理。

　　We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.

　　我们都记得美的褪去，爱的老去。但我们更痛苦地记得美正艳时，我们却没有发现，爱正浓时，我们却没有回应。

　　Here then is the first pole of life’s paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.

　　这就是生活对我们自己自相矛盾要求的第一步：永远不要因为忙碌而忽略了它的奇妙和庄严。对即将到来的每一天，我们都要心怀敬意，拥抱没一小时，抓住每一分钟。

　　Hold fast to life... but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life’s coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.

　　抓住生活，但不要抓得太紧，以至你放不下手。这就是生活像硬币一样也有另一面，也是生活矛盾的另一极：我们必须接受放弃，并且学会怎样让它过去。

　　This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, will be ours. But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this truth dawns upon us.

　　学会这些并非易事。特别是年少轻狂的时候，我们自认为是世界的主宰者，认为只要充满激情地全力追求，就可以得到一切。然而，事实并非如此。只有在面对种种现实时，我们才会渐渐没明白这个道理。

　　At every stage of life we sustain losses—and grow in the process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.

　　在人生的各个阶段，我们都会蒙受损失——并且在这一过程中成长。只有在脱离母体.失去庇护所时，我们才会开始独立的生活。我们不断地升学，接着又离开父母，离开儿时的故乡。继而，我们结婚生子，然后又放手让自己的子女出去闯荡。随着父母和配偶的相继离世，我们也逐渐或者很快衰老。最终，正如双手张开与紧握这一寓言所说，我们必须面对自身的死亡，失去原来的自我，失去我们拥有过或者憧憬过的一切。