音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.97]Passage 10. Rush

[00:04.04]Swallows may have gone, but there is a time of return;

[00:10.27]willow trees may have died back, but there is a time of regreening;

[00:15.30]peach blossoms may have fallen, but they will bloom again.

[00:19.79]Now, you the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return?

[00:27.23]If they had been stolen by someone, who could it be?

[00:31.39]Where could he hide them?

[00:33.46]If they had made the escape themselves, then where could they stay at the moment?

[00:39.70]I don’t know how many days I have been given to spend,

[00:44.52]but I do feel my hands are getting empty.

[00:47.91]Taking stock silently, I find that more than eight thousand days have already slid away from me.

[00:55.67]Like a drop of water from the point of a needle disappearing into the ocean,

[01:02.02]my days are dripping into the stream of time, soundless, traceless.

[01:08.15]Already sweat is starting on my forehead, and tears welling up in my eyes.

[01:14.49]Those that have gone have gone for good, those to come keep coming;

[01:20.73]yet in between, how fast is the shift, in such a rush?

[01:26.42]When I get up in the morning,

[01:28.83]the slanting sun marks its presence in my small room in two or three oblongs.

[01:35.72]The sun has feet, look, he is treading on, lightly and furtively;

[01:42.07]and I am caught, blankly, in his revolution.

[01:45.67]Thus — the day flows away through the sink when I wash my hands,

[01:51.59]wears off in the bowl when I eat my meal,

[01:54.87]and passes away before my day-dreaming gaze as reflect in silence.

[02:01.21]I can feel his haste now, so I reach out my hands to hold him back,

[02:07.34]but he keeps flowing past my withholding hands.

[02:11.17]In the evening, as I lie in bed, he strides over my body, glides past my feet, in his agile way.

[02:20.03]The moment I open my eyes and meet the sun again, one whole day has gone.

[02:27.58]I bury my face in my hands and heave a sigh.

[02:32.17]But the new day begins to flash past in the sigh.

[02:37.21]What can I do, in this bustling world, with my days flying in their escape?

[02:43.77]Nothing but to hesitate, to rush.

[02:47.49]What have I been doing in that eight-thousand-day rush, apart from hesitating?

[02:53.73]Those bygone days have been dispersed as smoke by a light wind,

[02:59.09]or evaporated as mist by the morning sun.

[03:02.60]What traces have I left behind me?

[03:06.10]Have I ever left behind any gossamer traces at all?

[03:10.25]I have come to the world, stark naked;

[03:13.97]am I to go back, in a blink, in the same stark nakedness?

[03:19.11]It is not fair though:

[03:21.20]why should I have made such a trip for nothing!

[03:24.80]You the wise, tell me,

[03:26.77]why should our days leave us, never to return?