Thomas Campbell - The River of Life 汉译

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  Our life’s succeeding stages: 

A day to childhood seems a year, 

  And years like passing ages. 

The gladsome current of our youth,         

  Ere passion yet disorders, 

Steals lingering like a river smooth 

  Along its grassy borders. 

But as the care-worn cheeks grow wan, 

  And sorrow’s shafts fly thicker,        

Ye Stars, that measure life to man, 

  Why seem your courses quicker? 

When joys have lost their bloom and breath 

  And life itself is vapid, 

Why, as we reach the Falls of Death,        

  Feel we its tide more rapid? 

It may be strange—yet who would change 

  Time’s course to slower speeding, 

When one by one our friends have gone 

  And left our bosoms bleeding?       

Heaven gives our years of fading strength 

  Indemnifying fleetness; 

And those of youth, a seeming length, 

  Proportioned to their sweetness.