HOW WOULD YOU?

 Half of our misery¹, half our pain,

Half the dark background of our self-reproach,

Is thought of how the world has sinned before.

We, being one, one with all life, we feel

The misdemeanors of uncounted time;

We suffer in the foolishness and sins

Of races just behind us,—burn with shame

At their gross ignorance and murderous deeds;

We suffer back of them in the long years

Of squalid struggling savagery² of beasts,—

Beasts human and subhuman; back of them

In helpless creatures eaten, hunted, torn;

In submerged forests dying in the slime;

And even back of that in endless years

Of hot convulsions of dismembered lands,

And slow constricting³ centuries of cold.

So in our own lives, even to this day,

We carry in the chambers⁴ of the mind

The tale of errors, failures, and misdeeds

That we call sins, of all our early lives.

And the recurrent consciousness of this

We call remorse⁵. The unrelenting gauge⁶,

Now measuring past error,—this is shame.

And in our feverish⁷ overconsciousness,

A retroactive and preactive sense,—

Fired with our self-made theories of sin,—

We suffer, suffer, suffer—half alive,

And half with the dead scars of suffering.

Friends, how would you, perhaps, have made the world?

Would you have balanced the great forces so

Their interaction would have bred no shock?

No cosmic throes of newborn continents,

No eras of the earth-encircling rain,—

Uncounted scalding tears that fell and fell

On molten worlds that hotly dashed them back

In storms of fierce repudiated⁸ steam?

Would you have made earth’s gems⁹ without the fire,

Without the water, and without the weight

Of crushing cubic miles of huddled¹⁰ rock?

Would you have made one kind of plant to reign¹¹

In all the earth, growing mast high, and then

Keep it undying so, and end of plants?

Would you have made one kind of animal

To live on air and spare the tender grass,

And stop him, somehow, when he grew so thick

That even air fell short. Or would you have

All plants and animals, and make them change

By some metempsychosis not called death?

For, having them, you have to have them change,

For growth is change, and life is growth; and change

Implies—in this world—what we miscall pain.

You, wiser, would have made mankind, no doubt,

Not slowly, awfully¹², from dying brutes¹³

Up into living humanness at last,

But fresh as Adam in the Hebrew tale;

Only you would have left the serpent out,

And left him, naked, in the garden still.

Or somehow, dodging¹⁴ this, have still contrived¹⁵

That he should learn the whole curriculum

And never miss a lesson—never fail—

Be born, like Buddha¹⁶, all accomplished¹⁷, wise.

Would you have chosen to begin life old,

Well-balanced, cautious, knowing where to step,

And so untortured by the memory

Of childhood’s foolishness and youth’s mistakes?

Or, born a child, to have experience

Come to you softly without chance of loss,

Recurring¹⁸ years each rolling to your hand

In blissful innocent unconsciousness?

O dreamers with a Heaven and a Hell

Standing¹⁹ at either end of your wild rush

Away from the large peace of knowing God,

Can you not see that all of it is good?

Good, with the postulate²⁰ that this is life,—

And that is all we have to argue from.

Childhood means error, the mistakes that teach;

But only rod and threat and nurse’s tale,

Make childhood’s errors bring us shame and sin.

The race’s childhood grows by error too,

And we are not attained²¹ to manhood yet.

But grief and shame are only born of lies.

Once see the lovely law that needs mistakes,

And you are young forever. This is Life.

1 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

2 savagery   

n.野性

参考例句：

• The police were shocked by the savagery of the attacks.警察对这些惨无人道的袭击感到震惊。
• They threw away their advantage by their savagery to the black population.他们因为野蛮对待黑人居民而丧失了自己的有利地位。

3 constricting   

压缩，压紧，使收缩( constrict的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Objective To discuss the clinical characteristics and treatment of congenital constricting band syndrome(CCBS) and amputations. 目的探讨先天性束带症与先天性截肢的临床特点及治疗方法。

4 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网

5 remorse   

n.痛恨，悔恨，自责

参考例句：

• She had no remorse about what she had said.她对所说的话不后悔。
• He has shown no remorse for his actions.他对自己的行为没有任何悔恨之意。

6 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

7 feverish   

adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的

参考例句：

• He is too feverish to rest.他兴奋得安静不下来。
• They worked with feverish haste to finish the job.为了完成此事他们以狂热的速度工作着。

8 repudiated   

v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务）

参考例句：

• All slanders and libels should be repudiated. 一切诬蔑不实之词，应予推倒。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The Prime Minister has repudiated racist remarks made by a member of the Conservative Party. 首相已经驳斥了一个保守党成员的种族主义言论。 来自辞典例句

9 gems   

growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长

参考例句：

• a crown studded with gems 镶有宝石的皇冠
• The apt citations and poetic gems have adorned his speeches. 贴切的引语和珠玑般的诗句为他的演说词增添文采。

10 huddled   

挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
• We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。

11 reign   

n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势

参考例句：

• The reign of Queen Elizabeth lapped over into the seventeenth century.伊丽莎白王朝延至17世纪。
• The reign of Zhu Yuanzhang lasted about 31 years.朱元璋统治了大约三十一年。

12 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

13 brutes   

兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性

参考例句：

• They're not like dogs; they're hideous brutes. 它们不像狗，是丑陋的畜牲。
• Suddenly the foul musty odour of the brutes struck his nostrils. 突然，他的鼻尖闻到了老鼠的霉臭味。 来自英汉文学

14 dodging   

n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避

参考例句：

• He ran across the road, dodging the traffic. 他躲开来往的车辆跑过马路。
• I crossed the highway, dodging the traffic. 我避开车流穿过了公路。 来自辞典例句

15 contrived   

adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的

参考例句：

• There was nothing contrived or calculated about what he said.他说的话里没有任何蓄意捏造的成分。
• The plot seems contrived.情节看起来不真实。

16 Buddha   

n.佛；佛像；佛陀

参考例句：

• Several women knelt down before the statue of Buddha and prayed.几个妇女跪在佛像前祈祷。
• He has kept the figure of Buddha for luck.为了图吉利他一直保存着这尊佛像。

17 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

18 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

19 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

20 postulate   

n.假定，基本条件；vt.要求，假定

参考例句：

• Let's postulate that she is a cook.我们假定她是一位厨师。
• Freud postulated that we all have a death instinct as well as a life instinct.弗洛伊德曾假定我们所有人都有生存本能和死亡本能。

21 attained   

（通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况）

参考例句：

• She has attained the degree of Master of Arts. 她已获得文学硕士学位。
• Lu Hsun attained a high position in the republic of letters. 鲁迅在文坛上获得崇高的地位。