在日常学习、工作或生活中，大家都看过一些经典的散文吧？散文是一种常见的'文学体裁，取材广泛，艺术表现形式丰富多样。你所见过的散文是什么样的呢？下面是小编辛苦为大家带来的经典的英语散文 (菁选4篇，如果能帮助到您，小编的一切努力都是值得的。
I think that, from a biological standpoint, human life almost reads like a poem.
It has its own rhythm and beat, its internal cycles of growth and decay.
It begins with innocent childhood, followed by awkward adolescence trying awkwardly to adapt itself to mature society, with its young passions and follies, its ideals and ambitions;
then it reaches a manhood of intense activities, profiting from experience and learning more about society and human nature; at middle age, there is a slight easing of tension, a mellowing of character like the ripening of fruit or the mellowing of good wine,
and the gradual acquiring of a more tolerant, more cynical and at the same time a kindlier view of life; then In the sunset of our life, the endocrine glands decrease their activity, and if we have a true philosophy of old age and have ordered our life pattern according to it,
it is for us the age of peace and security and leisure and contentment; finally, life flickers out and one goes into eternal sleep, never to wake up again.
One should be able to sense the beauty of this rhythm of life, to appreciate, as we do in grand symphonies, its main theme, its strains of conflict and the final resolution.
The movements of these cycles are very much the same in a normal life, but the music must be provided by the individual himself.
In some souls, the discordant note becomes harsher and harsher and finally overwhelms or submerges the main melody.
Sometimes the discordant note gains so much power that the music can no longer go on, and the individual shoots himself with a pistol or jump into a river.
But that is because his original leitmotif has been hopelessly over-showed through the lack of a good self-education.
Otherwise the normal human life runs to its normal end in kind of dignified movement and procession.
There are sometimes in many of us too many staccatos or impetuosos, and because the tempo is wrong, the music is not pleasing to the ear; we might have more of the grand rhythm and majestic tempo o the Ganges, flowing slowly and eternally into the sea.
No one can say that life with childhood, manhood and old age is not a beautiful arrangement; the day has its morning, noon and sunset, and the year has its seasons, and it is good that it is so.
There is no good or bad in life, except what is good according to its own season.
And if we take this biological view of life and try to live according to the seasons, no one but a conceited fool or an impossible idealist can deny that human life can be lived like a poem.
Shakespeare has expressed this idea more graphically in his passage about the seven stages of life, and a good many Chinese writers have said about the same thing.
It is curious that Shakespeare was never very religious, or very much concerned with religion.
I think this was his greatness; he took human life largely as it was, and intruded himself as little upon the general scheme of things as he did upon the characters of his plays.
Shakespeare was like Nature itself, and that is the greatest compliment we can pay to a writer or thinker.
He merely lived, observed life and went away.
我以为，从生物学角度看，人的一生恰如诗歌。
人生自有其韵律和节奏，自有内在的生成与衰亡。
人生始于无邪的童年，经过少年的青涩，带着激情与无知，理想与雄心，笨拙而努力地走向成熟；后来人到壮年，经历渐广，阅人渐多，涉世渐深，收益也渐大；及至中年，
人生的紧张得以舒缓，人的性格日渐成熟，如芳馥之果实，如醇美之佳酿，更具容忍之心，处世虽更悲观，但对人生的态度趋于和善；再后来就是人生迟暮，内分泌系统活动减少，若此时吾辈已经悟得老年真谛，
并据此安排残年，那生活将和平，宁静，安详而知足；终于，生命之烛摇曳而终熄灭，人开始永恒的长眠，不再醒来。
人们当学会感受生命韵律之美，像听交响乐一样，欣赏其主旋律、激昂的高潮和舒缓的尾声。
这些反复的乐章对于我们的生命都大同小异，但个人的乐曲却要自己去谱写。
在某些人心中，不和谐音会越来越刺耳，最终竟然能掩盖主曲；有时不和谐音会积蓄巨大的能量，令乐曲不能继续，这时人们或举枪自杀或投河自尽。
这是他最初的主题被无望地遮蔽，只因他缺少自我教育。
否则，常人将以体面的运动和进程走向既定的终点。
在我们多数人胸中常常会有太多的断奏或强音，那是因为节奏错了，生命的乐曲因此而不再悦耳。
我们应该如恒河，学她气势恢弘而豪迈地缓缓流向大海。
人生有童年、少年和老年，谁也不能否认这是一种美好的安排，一天要有清晨、正午和日落，一年要有四季之分，如此才好。
人生本无好坏之分，只是各个季节有各自的好处。
如若我们持此种生物学的观点，并循着季节去生活，除了狂妄自大的傻瓜和无可救药的理想主义者，谁能说人生不能像诗一般度过呢。
莎翁在他的一段话中形象地阐述了人生分七个阶段的观点，很多中国作家也说过类似的话。
奇怪的是，莎士比亚并不是虔诚的宗教徒，也不怎么关心宗教。
我想这正是他的伟大之处，他对人生秉着顺其自然的态度，他对生活之事的干涉和改动很少，正如他对戏剧人物那样。
莎翁就像自然一样，这是我们能给作家或思想家的最高褒奖。
对人生，他只是一路经历着，观察着，离我们远去了。
Today I begin a new life.
Today I shed my old skin which hath, too long, suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediority.
Today I am born anew and my birthplace is a vineyard where there is fruit for all.
Today I will pluck grapes of wisdom from the tallest and fullest vines in the vineyard,for these were planted by the wisest of my profession who have come before me,generation upon generation.
Today I will savor the taste of grapes from these vines and verily I will swallow the seed of success buried in each and new life will sprout within me.
The career I have chosen is laden with opportunity yet it is fraught with heartbreak and despair and the bodies of those who have failed, were they piled one atop another, would cast a shadow down upon all the pyramids of the earth.
Yet I will not fail, as the others, for in my hands I now hold the charts which will guide through perilous waters to shores which only yesterday seemed but a dream.
Failure no longer will be my payment for struggle. Just as nature made no provision for my body to tolerate pain neither has it made any provision for my life to suffer failure. Failure, like pain, is alien to my life. In the past I accepted it as I accepted pain. Now I reject it and I am prepared for wisdom and principles which will guide me out of the shadows into the sunlight of wealth, position, and happiness far beyond my most extravagant dreams until even the golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides will seem no more than my just reward.
Time teaches all things to him who lives forever but I have not the luxury of eternity. Yet within my allotted time I must practice the art of patience for nature acts never in haste. To create the olive, king of all trees, a hundred years is required. An onion plant is old in nine weeks. I have lived as an onion plant. It has not pleased me. Now I wouldst become the greatest of olive trees and, in truth, the greatest of salesman.
And how will this be accomplished? For I have neither the knowledge nor the experience to achieve the greatness and already I have stumbled in ignorance and fallen into pools of self-pity. The answer is simple. I will commence my journey unencumbered with either the weight of unnecessary knowledge or the handicap of meaningless experience. Nature already has supplied me with knowledge and instinct far greater than any beast in the forest and the value of experience is overrated, usually by old men who nod wisely and speak stupidly.
In truth, experience teaches thoroughly yet her course of instruction devours mens years so the value of her lessons diminishes with the time necessary to acquire her special wisdom. The end finds it wasted on dead men. Furthermore, experience is comparable to fashion; an action that proved successful today will be unworkable and impractical tomorrow.
Only principles endure and these I now possess, for the laws that will lead me to greatness are contained in the words of these scrolls. What they will teach me is more to prevent failure than to gain success, for what is success other than a state of mind? Which two, among a thouand wise men, will define success in the same words; yet failure is always described but one way. Failure is mans inability to reach his goals in life, whatever they may be.
The first memory I have of him — of anything, really — is his strength. It was in the late afternoon in a house under construction near ours. The unfinished wood floor had large, terrifying holes whose yawning[张大嘴] darkness I knew led to nowhere good. His powerful hands, then age 33, wrapped all the way around my tiny arms, then age 4, and easily swung[摇摆] me up to his shoulders to command all I surveyed.
我对他——实际上是对所有事的最初记忆，就是他的力量。那是一个下午的晚些时候，在一所靠近我家的正在修建的房子里，尚未完工的木地板上有一个个巨大可怕的洞，那些张着大口的黑洞在我看来是通向不祥之处的。时年33岁的爸爸用那强壮有力的双手一把握住我的小胳膊，当时我才4岁，然后轻而易举地把我甩上他的肩头，让我把一切都尽收眼底。
The relationship between a son and his father changes over time. It may grow and flourish[繁茂] in mutual maturity[成熟]。 It may sour in resented dependence or independence. With many children living in single-parent homes today, it may not even exist.
父子间的关系是随着岁月的流逝而变化的，它会在彼此成熟的过程中成长兴盛，也会在令人不快的依赖或独立的关系中产生不和。而今许多孩子生活在单亲家庭中，这种关系可能根本不存在。
But to a little boy right after World War II ，a father seemed a god with strange strengths and uncanny[离奇的] powers enabling him to do and know things that no mortal could do or know. Amazing things, like putting a bicycle chain back on, just like that. Or building a hamster[仓鼠] guiding a jigsaw[拼板玩具] so it forms the letter F;I learned the alphabet[字母表] that way in those pre-television days.
然而，对于一个生活在二战刚刚结束时期的小男孩来说，父亲就像神，他拥有神奇的力量和神秘的能力，他无所不能，无所不知。那些奇妙的事儿有上自行车链条，或是建一个仓鼠笼子，或是教我玩拼图玩具，拼出个字母“F”来。在那个电视机还未诞生的年代，我便是通过这种方法学会了字母表的。
There were, of course, rules to learn. First came the handshake. None of those fishy[冷冰冰的] little finger grips, but a good firm squeeze accompanied by an equally strong gaze into the other's eyes. “ The first thing anyone knows about you is your handshake,” he would say. And we'd practice it each night on his return from work, the serious toddler in the battered[用旧了的] Cleveland Indian's cap running up to the giant father to shake hands again and again until it was firm enough.
当然，还得学些做人的道理。首先是握手。这可不是指那种冷冰冰的手指相握，而是一种非常坚定有力的紧握，同时同样坚定有力地注视对方的眼睛。老爸常说： “人们认识你首先是通过同你握手。”每晚他下班回家时，我们便练习握手。年幼的我，戴着顶破克利夫兰印第安帽，一本正经地跌跌撞撞地跑向巨人般的父亲，开始我们的握手。一次又一次，直到握得坚定，有力。
As time passed, there were other rules to learn. “Always do your best.”“Do it now.”“Never lie!” And most importantly,“You can do whatever you have to do.” By my teens, he wasn't telling me what to do anymore, which was scary[令人害怕的] and heady[使人兴奋的] at the same time. He provided perspective, not telling me what was around the great corner of life but letting me know there was a lot more than just today and the next, which I hadn't thought of.
随着时间的流逝，还有许多其他的道理要学。比如：“始终尽力而为”，“从现在做起”，“永不撒谎”，以及最重要的一条：“凡是你必须做的事你都能做到”。当我十几岁时，老爸不再叫我做这做那，这既令人害怕又令人兴奋。他教给我判断事物的方法。他不是告诉我，在人生的重大转折点上将发生些什么，而是让我明白，除了今天和明天，还有很长的路要走，这一点我是从未考虑过的。
One day, I realize now, there was a change. I wasn't trying to please him so much as I was trying to impress him. I never asked him to come to my football games. He had a high-pressure career, and it meant driving through most of Friday night. But for all the big games, when I looked over at the sideline, there was that familiar fedora. And by God, did the opposing team captain ever get a firm handshake and a gaze he would remember.
有一天，事情发生了变化，这是我现在才意识到的。我不再那么迫切地想要取悦于老爸，而是迫切地想要给他留下深刻的印象。我从未请他来看我的橄榄球赛。他工作压力很大，这意味着每个礼拜五要拼命干大半夜。但每次大型比赛，当我抬头环视看台时，那顶熟悉的软呢帽总在那儿。并且感谢上帝，对方队长总能得到一次让他铭记于心的握手——坚定而有力，伴以同样坚定的注视。
Then, a school fact contradicted something he said. Impossible that he could be wrong, but there it was in the book. These accumulated over time, along with personal experiences, to buttress my own developing sense of values. And I could tell we had each taken our own, perfectly normal paths.
后来，在学校学到的一个事实否定了老爸说过的'某些东西。他不可能会错的，可书上却是这样写的。诸如此类的事日积月累，加上我的个人阅历，支持了我逐渐成形的价值观。我可以这么说：我俩开始各走各的阳关道了。
I began to see, too, his blind spots, his prejudices[偏见] and his weaknesses. I never threw these up at him. He hadn't to me, and, anyway, he seemed to need protection. I stopped asking his advice; the experiences he drew from no longer seemed relevant to the decisions I had to make.
与此同时，我还开始发现他对某些事的无知，他的偏见，他的弱点。我从未在他面前提起这些，他也从未在我面前说起，而且，不管怎么说，他看起来需要保护了。我不再向他征求意见；他的那些经验也似乎同我要做出的决定不再相干。
He volunteered advice for a while. But then, in more recent years, politics and issues gave way to talk of empty errands and, always, to ailments.
老爸当了一段时间的“自愿顾问”，但后来，特别是近几年里，他谈话中的政治与国家大事让位给了空洞的使命与疾病。
From his bed, he showed me the many sores and scars on his misshapen body and all the bottles for medicine. “ Sometimes,” he confided[倾诉]， “ I would just like to lie down and go to sleep and not wake up.”
躺在床上，他给我看他那被岁月扭曲了的躯体上的疤痕，以及他所有的药瓶儿。他倾诉着：“有时我真想躺下睡一觉，永远不再醒来。”
After much thought and practice （“ You can do whatever you have to do.” ）， one night last winter, I sat down by his bed and remembered for an instant those terrifying dark holes in another house 35 years before. I told my fatherhow much I loved him. I described all the things people were doing for him. But, I said, he kept eating poorly, hiding in his room and violating the doctor's orders. No amount of love could make someone else care about life, I said; it was a two-way street. He wasn't doing his best. The decision was his.
通过深思熟虑与亲身体验（“凡是你必须做的事你都能做到”），去年冬天的一个夜晚，我坐在老爸床边，忽然想起35年前那另一栋房子里可怕的黑洞。我告诉老爸我有多爱他。我向他讲述了人们为他所做的一切。而我又说，他总是吃得太少，躲在房间里，还不听医生的劝告。我说，再多的爱也不能使一个人自己去热爱生命：这是一条双行道，而他并没有尽力，一切都取决于他自己。
He said he knew how hard my words had been to say and how proud he was of me. “ I had the best teacher,” I said. “ You can do whatever you have to do.” He smiled a little. And we shook hands, firmly, for the last time.
他说他明白要我说出这些话多不容易，他是多么为我自豪。“我有位最好的老师，”我说，“凡是你必须做的事你都能做到”。他微微一笑，之后我们握手，那是一次坚定的握手，也是最后的一次。
Several days later, at about 4 A.M.， my mother heard Dad shuffling[拖着] about their dark room. “ I have some things I have to do,” he said. He paid a bundle of bills. He composed for my mother a long list of legal and financial what-to-do's “ in case of emergency.” And he wrote me a note.
几天后，大约凌晨四点，母亲听到父亲拖着脚步在他们漆黑的房间里走来走去。他说：“有些事我必须得做。”他支付了一叠帐单，给母亲留了张长长的条子，上面列有法律及经济上该做的事，“以防不测”。接着他留了封短信给我。
Then he walked back to his bed and laid himself down. He went to sleep, naturally. And he did not wake up.
然后，他走回自己的床边，躺下。他睡了，十分安详，再也没有醒来。
"I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days."--Henry David Thoreau.
When Thoreau wrote that line, he was thinking of the Walden Pond he knew as a boy.
Woodchoppers and the iron horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat, lazily drifting from shore to shore while the loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days "when idleness was the most attractive and productive business."
I too was a boy in love with a pond, rich in sunny hours and summer days. Sun and summer are still what they always were, but the boy and the pond changed. The boy, who is now a man, no longer finds much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed by a great city.
The swamps where herons once hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short,everything that the boy loved no longer exists - except in the man's memory of it.
Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule! So much of what we do today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.
The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession: the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.
Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days, because days enshrined in memory are never lost.
Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile. And for one boy who is now a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change, where he can still spend a quiet hour in the sun.