"…I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days." -- Henry David Thoreau
When Thoreau wrote that line, he was thinking of the Walden Pond he knew as a boy.
Woodchoppers and the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat, lazily drifting from shore to shore while the loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days "when idleness was the most attractive and productive business."
I too was a boy in love with a pond, rich in sunny hours and summer days. Sun and summer are still what they always were, but the boy and the pond changed. The boy, who is now a man, no longer find much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed by a great city.
The swamps where herons once hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short, everything that the boy loved no longer exists----except in the man's memory of it.
Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule! So much of what we do today is frivolous（无聊的，轻佻的） and futile（无用的） and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.
The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession: the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.
Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan（惋惜） the passing of the good old days, because days enshrined in memory are never lost.
Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile. And for one boy who is now a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change, where he can still spend a quite hour in the sun.
相关单词：annexed
annexed解释：[法] 附加的，附属的
annexed例句：
Germany annexed Austria in 1938. 1938年德国吞并了奥地利。
The outlying villages were formally annexed by the town last year. 那些偏远的村庄于去年正式被并入该镇。
相关单词：frivolous
frivolous解释：adj.轻薄的；轻率的
frivolous例句：
This is a frivolous way of attacking the problem.这是一种轻率敷衍的处理问题的方式。
He spent a lot of his money on frivolous things.他在一些无聊的事上花了好多钱。
相关单词：futile
futile解释：adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的
futile例句：
They were killed,to the last man,in a futile attack.因为进攻失败，他们全部被杀，无一幸免。
Their efforts to revive him were futile.他们对他抢救无效。
相关单词：bemoan
bemoan解释：v.悲叹，哀泣，痛哭；惋惜，不满于
bemoan例句：
Purists bemoan the corruption of the language.主张语文纯正的人哀叹语言趋于不纯。
Don't bemoan anything or anyone that you need to leave behind.不要再去抱怨那些你本该忘记的人或事。
相关单词：erase
erase解释：v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹
erase例句：
He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。
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