英語背誦文選第一冊(cè)(陳冠商)Pines
03 Pines
The pine placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate brings into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them, or a bank of cowslips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the centre of the earth as long as the tree lives.Also it may be well for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and to endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained desiring nothing but rightness content with restricted completion. Tall or short it will be straight .
