I was a naturalist, and had crossed the sea
And come to Theodosia, to find
A monstrous spider of which I had heard.
The people of the town wagged doubting heads,
When asked about it; but one day I met
A sturdy fisherman who once had seen
The spider, though he knew not his abode.
He said the spider was as long as he,
And that the woof whereof he wove his web,
Was thick as any cordage on his boat.
At night, belated 'mid the tumuli
That mound the hill-side and the vernal vale,
Like the raised letters of an ancient page
Made for the blind gropers of to-day to read,
He entered a dark tomb, and therein slept,
Until the world, like some round shield upraised,
Splintered the thrown spears of dawn. As he woke,
He found himself ensnared in some thick web,
Yet reached his knife, and slowly cut it through;
Then when he stood, a monstrous spider fled.
At this recital on the slanted shore,
Another joined us from the cottage near--
A vine-clad cottage, lit for love's abode.
A lily-croft, with trees, encinctured it;
Like Ahab in his house of ivory
Dining on sweets, the king bee here
Sipped in the snowy lily's palace hall;
And here were yellow lilies strewn about,
As though the place had been the banquet grove
Of Shishak, king of Egypt; for the flowers
Seemed like the cups of gold that Solomon
Wrought for the holy service of the Lord.
One day in spring four men were riding on horseback along a country road. These men were lawyers, and they were going to the next town to attend court.
There had been a rain, and the ground was very soft. Water was dripping from the trees, and the grass was wet.
The four lawyers rode along, one behind another; for the pathway was narrow, and the mud on each side of it was deep. They rode slowly, and talked and laughed and were very jolly.
As they were passing through a grove of small trees, they heard a great fluttering over their heads and a feeble chirping in the grass by the roadside.
"Stith! stith! stith!" came from the leafy branches above them.
"Cheep! cheep! cheep!" came from the wet grass.
"What is the matter here?" asked the first lawyer, whose name was Speed. "Oh, it's only some old robins!" said the second lawyer, whose name was Hardin. "The storm has blown two of the little ones out of the nest. They are too young to fly, and the mother bird is making a great fuss about it."
"What a pity! They'll die down there in the grass," said the third lawyer, whose name I forget.
"Oh, well! They're nothing but birds," said Mr. Hardin. "Why should we bother?"
"Yes, why should we?" said Mr. Speed.
Tags: 林肯 , Abraham Lincoln , 英语名人传记 ,
It was 10 p.m. Fritz said good night to his wife. She was watching TV. He went to bed. Tomorrow was a big day. It was his last day of work. Thirty years with the federal government. Thirty years of flying out of town for weeks on end. Thirty years of interviews, meetings, and heavy briefcases. Tomorrow it would all be over. Not that he didn’t like it. He had enjoyed his career.
Fritz felt blessed. His father had had a tough life as an unskilled laborer. Whenever Fritz was a bit discouraged or upset, he thought about his overworked and underpaid father. He thanked God for his own good life, and for the fact that he had been able to make his dad’s last years comfortable.
His two children were married and had their own careers. His wife Paige kept busy with, among other things, her bridge club. She had tried to get him interested in bridge, but without success. Fritz was content with his own Friday night poker group.
Friday morning, he went to work for the very last time. Those who knew him well would miss him. Fritz was a genuinely nice guy. He never had a bad word to say about anyone. Some people might have thought he was a little dull, but he was intelligent, a hard worker, and a team player. He had taken only three weeks of sick leave in 30 years.