激情晨读英语美文 第一章 人生如诗:人在旅途
Chapter One  Human Life Like a Poem
I think that, from a biological standpoint,
human life almost reads like a poem.
It has its own rhythm and beat,
its internal cycles of growth and decay.
No one can say that a life with childhood,
manhood and old age is not a beautiful arrangement;
the day has its morning, noon and sunset,
and the year has its seasons, and it is good
that it is so. There is no good or bad in life,
except what is good according to its own season.
And if we take this biological view of life
and try to live according to the seasons,
no one but a conceited fool or an impossible idealist
can deny that human life can be lived like a poem.
　　——Lin Yutang

We Are on a Journey
By Henry Van Dyke
Wherever you are, and whoever you may be,
there is one thing in which you and I are
just alike,at this moment, and in all the moments
of our existence.We are not at rest;
we are on a journey. Our life is not a mere fact;
it is a movement, a tendency, a steady,
ceaseless progress towards an unseen goal.
We are gaining something, or losing something, every day.
Even when our position and our character seem to
remain precisely the same, they are changing.
For the mere advance of time is a change.
It is not the same thing to have a bare field
in January and in July. The season makes the difference.
The limitations that are childlike in the child are childish
in the man.Everything that we do is a step
in one direction or another. Even the failure to do something
is in itself a deed. It sets us forward or backward.
The action of the negative pole of a magnetic needle is
just as real as the action of the positive pole.
To decline is to accept — the other alternative.
Are you nearer to your port today than you were yesterday?
Yes, — you must be a little nearer to some port or other;
for since your ship was first launched upon
the sea of life you have never been still
for a single moment; the sea is too deep,
you could not find an anchorage if you would;
there can be no pause until you come into port.