双语美文：The Quicksand 流沙 before, familiar, distance

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Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar shore. 幽美的丧钟，那来自迢递的远方，悲泣着清晓之前逝去者的钟声，把我从一个熟悉的岸边的舟中惊醒起来。 The morning twilight even then was breaking; and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl, adorned with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the solitary strand in extremity of haste. 这时，冥冥的曙天刚才破晓，朦胧昏暗之中，我瞥见一个少女，头上盛饰着节日的白玫瑰花冠，正沿着孤寂的海滩跑去，神情异常紧张。 Her running was the running of panic; and often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. 她简直是在狂奔，不时地又回眸顾盼一下，仿佛身后有恶人追踪。 But when I leaped ashore, and followed in her steps to warn her of a peril in front, alas! from me she fled as from another peril, and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead. 但是当我跃上岸边，赶了上去，想警告她前面危险，但是天啊！她却将我甩掉，好像避去一桩新的祸害，因此我虽高声嘶叫前面有流沙，也终归无效。 Faster and faster she ran; round a promontory of rocks she wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. 她却跑越快；绕过了一座岬角，便不见了；霎时间，我也绕到那里，但只见那险恶的流沙已使她遭到灭顶之灾。 Already her person was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem of white roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of all, was visible one white marble arm. 这时她已周身覆没，只剩下那秀美的头颅，以及头上的玫瑰王冠，泣对着那垂怜的苍天；最后，唯一还能瞥见的，是一只皓白的玉臂。

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I saw by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness—saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faltering, rising, clutching, as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds—saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then uttering her dying despair.

凭着晨曦的微明，我眼见着那秀美的头额沉入深渊——眼见着那只玉臂，伸出在她的头顶与那险恶的坟墓之上，抬啊，摆啊，伸啊，抓啊，仿佛向着云端透出的一只欺诓的手臂呼救——眼见着它呼出最后的希望，接着，最后的绝望。




The head, the diadem, the arm, —these all had sunk; at last over these also the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn.

头颅、花冠、玉臂——一概沉沦；临了，那残酷的流沙把这一切都埋在封在地下；这美丽的少女在天地之间没有留下一丝痕迹，只剩得我的一掬天涯清泪而已，而这时，海潮正徐徐涌动，飘过眼前荒漠般水面上的钟声，在这幽骨的茔坟之畔与凄厉的晓天之际，吟哦着一阕悱恻的安魂哀曲。