The Glory of the Garden by Rudyard Kipling(MP3+双语)

拉迪亚德.吉卜林（Rudyard Kipling），1865—1936，英国小说家、诗人，出生于印度孟买。父亲曾是孟买艺术学校教师，后任拉合尔艺术学校校长和博物馆馆长。马克·吐温曾盛赞吉卜林的作品，“我了解吉卜林的书……它们对于我从来不会变得苍白，它们保持着缤纷的色彩；它们永远是新鲜的。”由于“观察的能力、新颖的想象、雄浑的思想和杰出的叙事才能”，他于1907年获得诺贝尔文学奖，成为英国第一位获此奖的作家。
拉迪亚德曾旅居印度，游历美国、南非、加拿大等国家，他的诗仿佛在不经意中完成，却往往产生巨大反响。一位作家这样评价拉迪亚德．吉卜林：“不仅在文学上，乃至在世界上的所有英语国家中，他都被认为是最具影响力的人。”
Rudyard Kipling - The Glory of the Garden
OUR England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:-" Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away !