经典英语美文 （84）紧迫性
June 24 If a man is ever going to admit that he belongs to the earth, not the other way round,it probably will be in late June.Then it is that life surpasses man’s affairs with incredible urgency and outreaches him in every direction.Even the farmer, on whom we all depend for the substance of existence,knows then that the best he can do is cooperate with wind and weather, soil and seed.The incalculable energy of chlorophyll, the green leaf itself, dominates the earth,and the root in the soil is the inescapable fact. Even the roadside weed ignores man’s legislation.
The urgency is everywhere. Grass blankets the earth, reaching for the sun, spreads its roots,flowers and comes to seed. The forest widens its canopy, strengthens its boles, nurtures its seedlings, ripens its perpetuating nuts. The birds nest and hatch their fledglings. The beetle and the bee are busy at the grassrootand the blossom, and the butterfly lays eggs that will hatch and crawl and eat and pupate and take to the air once more. Fish spawn and meadow voles harvest the wild meadows, and owls and foxes feed their young. Dragonflies and swallows and nighthawks seine the air where the minute winged creatures flit out their minute life spans.
And man, who glibly calls the earth his own, neither powers the leaf nor energizes the fragile wing.Man participates, but his dominance is limited. It is the urgency of life, or growth, that rules.Late June and early Summer are the ultimate, unarguable proof.
6月24日
如果一个人愿意承认他是属于地球的而不是地球属于他，那很可能就是在6月份的晚些时候。这个时候，自然生机那种只争朝夕的精神比起人类亊务来真是紧迫得令人难人置信，在各方面都胜人类一筹。就连农民（我们依靠他们生产的东西 维持生存）也知道这时候最好是能顺应风雨天候，照料土壞种子。主宰着大地的是叶绿素无法估算的能源以及绿叶本身，土壤中有根的存在，这是自不待言的。即使是路边的野草也都冲破人为的制约蔓生开来。
那种只争朝夕的紧迫感无处不在。草如绿毯,铺满大地，一直伸向太阳；它四处伸延根须，开花结籽。森林拓展其华盖，强固其主干，给其秧苗输送养分，并使长了许久的坚果渐趋成熟。鸟雀筑巢并孵化雏鸟。甲虫在草根旁奔忙，蜜蜂在花丛中飞逐。蝴蝶则在产卵，将来孵出的小虫从爬行、吃食、化蛹到振翅飞舞 再经历一次循环。鱼儿也在产卵，田鼠则在野生的牧场上采获食物。猫头鹰和狐狸给它们的幼仔喂食。蜻蜓、燕子和夜鹰在天空中像围网似地捕食，而极小的有翼动物在空中轻快地飞来飞去，顷刻间其想暂的生命便结束了。
然而,人类扬亩地球属于他们,可是既不能给叶片以能量又不能给脆弱的翅臃以力量。人类只是参与其中，而其主导地位是有限的。驾御一切的是生命或生长只争朝夕的紧迫性。6月份晚些时候的初夏时节从根本上无可争辩地证明了这一点。