时令描写：夏日的农村-The Countryside in Summer

夏日的农村
【内容提示】
夏日的农村，郁郁葱葱，繁花盛开，莺歌燕舞，一派美景。请你用英语将这样一幅夏日图描写一番。内容要点如下：
①夏天伴着它那温暖的明媚阳光而来，使我们想起了各种美好的事情：在农村的度假，野餐活动，还有那翻晒干草时节的聚会……
②春天到来的时候，乍暧还寒，大地空旷，草木未长；而夏季到来之时，世界成了另一番景象：是一片绿的世界——绿的树叶，绿的草地，树篱间植物葱郁，鲜花到处盛开。
③白天长了，夜晚短了；在明媚的六月里，太阳早早起床，很晚才入睡。这是一年里最美好最有生机的一个月。鸟儿从太阳升起一直唱到太阳落山以后才停息。
④当别的鸟儿静下来之后，传来一阵柔和的叫声；再过一会，声音大了起来，很快，夜莺尽情地唱起它那奇妙的歌。
【作文示范】
The Countryside in Summer
Summer has come, with its warm sunny days, making us thing of all sorts of nice things, such as holidays in the country, picnics and haymaking①parties.
When Spring came, she found the earth cold and bare, but she soon changed all that, and by the time Summer arrives, the world is a very different place. It is a green world now, green leaves on the trees, green grass in the fields, green plants crowding in the hedges②, and flowers opening everywhere.
The days are long and the nights are short, for the sun gets up early and goes to bed late in sunny June. It is one of the best and brightest months in the year. Birds sing from sunrise till long after sunset.
As night falls, one after another the birds stop their singing, and after a few last sleepy sounds, put their heads under their wings to rest for an hour or two before beginning again. They do not all sleep, however. When other birds are silent, comes a soft cry, then, after a few moments, another, louder this time; and soon the nightingale③ pouring out his wonderful song.
Not only at night does the nightingale sing. On almost every warm day in early June, the little brown bird sings away in the roads and woods, but, as all the other birds are also singing at the same time, we do not notice his voice so much. It is at night, when he has the field all to himself, that we hear the nightingale at his best.
（选自《英语学习》1984年第7期）
【词语解释】
①haymaking [＇hei?meikiR] n．制备干草
②hedge [hedN] n．（矮树的）树篱
③nightingale [＇naitiRgeil] n．夜莺
【写作指要】
1）本文作者抓住“绿的世界”和“歌的昼夜”从视觉描写到听觉描写给读者描绘了一幅生机勃勃的夏日农村的美景。
2）第二段里“green”一词的多次重复使“绿的世界”深深留在人们的心里。在第三、四、五段里，作者把“歌声”这一概念用不同的词表达出来，如“sing”,“song”,“sounds”,“cry”,“pouring out”,“singing”,“voice”等，如此同义照应，使语义上下连贯，同时也加强和突出了“夜莺歌唱”的主题。
3）本文作者使用了拟人（personification）手法，文章显得格外生动：第二段Spring和Summer两个词首字母大写，用“she”指代“Spring”；第三段中的“gets up”和“goes to bed”,“birds sing”；第四段中的“sleep”,“cry”；第五段中的“his voice”,“he”和“himself”都是拟人用法。
4）为了使描写生动优美，作者使用了分词短语“making us think of…”，独产主格结构“green leaves on the trees…flowers opening everywhere”，省略句法“then, after a few moments, (comes) another (cry),(which is) louder this time”，以及传神的短语“all to himself”和“at hisbest”等。