LESSON 40 The swallow

第四十课 燕子

The winter was long and dreary; but it is all over now.

漫长又沉闷的冬天过去了。

Indeed you have almost forgotten it, as you sally forth on this sweet spring morning,

没错，你差点忘了，在这个美好的春天的早晨，

to gather primroses from the bank, and to see if the cowslips are out in the fields.

你到河边去采集报春花，去看看驴蹄草是否已经冒出新芽。

Everything is full of life and joy;

所有的一切都充满生机和欢乐；

and just as you stoop over the green springing meadow-grass, to look for those golden honey cups,

就在你弯下腰去看刚冒出新芽的小草，寻找金黄色的蜂蜜杯，

something black skims along in front of you, and is away in an instant.

一个黑色的东西在你面前飞过，又马上飞走了。

"Ah, there is the first swallow!" you say.

“啊，第一只燕子来了！”你说。

And the old man coming along the footpath at the same moment looks after it just as eagerly as you do,

老人这时也跟过来，和你一样热切地注视着燕子。

though he has seen it come and go for seventy years, and you only for a few summers.

他看燕子飞走飞回已经有七十年之久，而你只在几个夏天看到过。

Yes! and if you grow to be seventy, you will find, I hope, that you have still a welcome to give to the returning swallow.

是的！等到你七十岁时就会发现，你还会一如既往地欢迎飞回来的燕子。

It has been spending the winter in the sunny lands of the South;

飞回来的燕子已经在温暖的南方过了冬；

and now it has come back to its old home, to rear its young and live its life anew.

现在它们回到自己的老家，回来养育后代，开始一段新的生活。

Why it should depart, and how it finds its way over land and sea back to the very spot which it left last year,

为什么这只燕子离群了，它又是如何穿过陆地和海洋回到去年离开的地方，

are questions which we cannot answer;

都是我们无法回答的问题；

and the uncertainty and the mystery give a kind of romantic interest to all birds of passage, as they are called, but especially to the swallows.

这种不确定性和神秘性赋予了所有候鸟，尤其是燕子，一种浪漫的情怀。