Beauty of July 七月之美

By Alice Meynell

One has the leisure of July for perceiving all the differences of the green of leaves. It is no longer a difference in degrees of maturity, for all the trees have darkened to their final tone, and stand in their differences of character and not of mere date. Almost all the green is grave, not sad and not dull. It has a darkened and a daily colour, in majestic but not obvious harmony with dark grey skies, and might look, to inconstant eyes, as prosaic after spring as eleven o’clock looks after the dawn.

七月間，人們有余暇觀察樹葉綠翠的千差萬別。這不再是成熟上的差異，因為所有的樹木，或轉蒼翠，或呈墨綠，色調均已固著定格，從而展現出來的，并非時節上的不同，而是各自品格上的差異。幾乎各種綠色，品味凝重，既不流于悒郁，也不失之沉悶，它具有一種深沉、日常的色澤，與灰暗的蒼穹渾然一體，構成莊重卻非一眼可見的和諧，故而在游覽掃掠的目光看來，可能會有陽春繁景過后的平淡之感。一如黎明之后十一點的光景。

Gravity is the word---not solemnity as towards evening, nor menace as at night. The daylight trees of July are signs of common beauty, common freshness, and a mystery familiar and abiding as night and day. In childhood we all have a more exalted sense of dawn and summer sunrise than we ever fully retain or quite recover; and also a far-higher sensibility for April and April evenings---a heartache for them, which in riper years is gradually and irretrievably consoled.

凝重，乃是最貼切的字眼——不是時近黃昏的陰沉，亦非黑夜之中的森然。七月白晝的蔥郁樹木，體現出普通的美，常見的清新，是一種如同黑夜白晝般慣常而又永恒不變的不解之謎。童年時代，我們看到黎明和夏天日出盛景，會油然生出一股日后無法充分保留、也難以完全恢復的奮激狂喜;同時，對四月和四月的日暮黃昏，還產生一種陶然忘情的欣賞共鳴——一種為之怦然心動的神馳向往，進入壯年之后，又無可挽回地逐漸淡化平息。

But, on the other hand, childhood has so quickly learned to find daily things tedious, and familiar things importunate, that it has no great delight in the mere middle of the day, and feels weariness of the summer that has ceased to change visibly. The poetry of mere day and of late summer becomes perceptible to mature eyes that have long ceased to be sated, have taken leave of weariness, and cannot now find anything in nature too familiar; eyes which have, indeed, lost sight of the further awe of midsummer daybreak, and no longer see so much of the past in April twilight as they saw when they had no past; but which look freshly at the dailiness of green summer, of early afternoon, of every sky of any form that comes to pass, and of the darkened elms.

只有閱歷豐富的慧眼，才能感受到白晝本身的夏末時令固有的詩意——這雙慧眼已久未獲滿足矣，同時也擺脫了厭倦感，此刻發現在自然界，即使最常見的景物也另有一番情趣;誠然，面對仲夏紅日的噴薄欲出，已不再萌發敬畏之情;凝望四月的蒼茫暮色，也不會比一無閱歷的童年，引發更多的聯想，然而，對司空見慣的日常景象——樹木蔥蘢的盛夏，日過中天的午后，來而復去、變幻不定的每一片云天，還有幽暗的榆樹——反倒會投以新的目光。