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LESSON 40 The swallow
第四十課 燕子
The winter was long and dreary; but it is all over now.
漫長又沉悶的冬天過去了。
Indeed you have almost forgotten it, as you sally forth on this sweet spring morning,
沒錯，你差點忘了，在這個美好的春天的早晨，
to gather primroses from the bank, and to see if the cowslips are out in the fields.
你到河邊去采集報春花，去看看驢蹄草是否已經冒出新芽。
Everything is full of life and joy;
所有的一切都充滿生機和歡樂；
and just as you stoop over the green springing meadow-grass, to look for those golden honey cups,
就在你彎下腰去看剛冒出新芽的小草，尋找金黃色的蜂蜜杯，
something black skims along in front of you, and is away in an instant.
一個黑色的東西在你面前飛過，又馬上飛走了。
"Ah, there is the first swallow!" you say.
“啊，第一只燕子來了！”你說。
And the old man coming along the footpath at the same moment looks after it just as eagerly as you do,
老人這時也跟過來，和你一樣熱切地注視著燕子。
though he has seen it come and go for seventy years, and you only for a few summers.
他看燕子飛走飛回已經有七十年之久，而你只在幾個夏天看到過。
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！等到你七十歲時就會發現，你還會一如既往地歡迎飛回來的燕子。
It has been spending the winter in the sunny lands of the South;
飛回來的燕子已經在溫暖的南方過了冬；
and now it has come back to its old home, to rear its young and live its life anew.
現在它們回到自己的老家，回來養育后代，開始一段新的生活。
Why it should depart, and how it finds its way over land and sea back to the very spot which it left last year,
為什么這只燕子離群了，它又是如何穿過陸地和海洋回到去年離開的地方，
are questions which we cannot answer;
都是我們無法回答的問題；
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.
這種不確定性和神秘性賦予了所有候鳥，尤其是燕子，一種浪漫的情懷。
