A Joy Forever

John Keats wrote, “ A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Perennial, enduring love is a thing of beauty, rather like a rose can be.

诗人济慈写道，“美好的事物会带来永恒的喜悦。” 永恒持久的爱情正是如此，它如玫瑰花般美好。

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I sat with the old man there in companionable silence, among the scent of a myriad of rose blossoms. What was it that kept his love going inside him? What did the two of them have, even after one of them had died, that so many of us spend our lives desperately seeking?

我陪伴在老人身边，静静地坐着，无数玫瑰花瓣散发出香气环绕着我们，是什么让爱在他内心持久留存？他和去世的妻子之间有什么呢，甚至在一方去世后还永存不息？难道是我们中很多人孤注一掷、追寻一生的东西？

It occurred to me that some people are like prisms棱镜, 折光体; anyone with a light in them can be near that person and have their light reflected into many different colors, like the colors of the roses around us. Prisms by themselves cannot make light, and light by itself can't divide into the lovely colors or the rainbow. Jame's wife must have been like a prism, being there to magnify and reflect her husband's light. He made her complete because she completed him. I thought at that moment how she must be smiling upon him, seeing all the  gifts he had planted for her.

我忽然想到，有些人就像棱镜一样，本身并不会发光，因此也无法折射出彩虹般绚丽丰富的色彩。但是，当一个内心能发光的人靠近他们时，他们就能把这缕光芒折射成各种不同颜色，正如我们身边这些玫瑰般五彩斑斓。老人的妻子可能就是一枚棱镜，她总是可以放大、折射丈夫的光芒。在他成全了她的同时，她也成全了他。我想，那一刻，她一定看到了老人为她准备的礼物——这所有的玫瑰，她也一定在天堂对着老人微笑吧。

As I took his thin old hand and saw him smile at me a bit sadly, in spite of the lovely midsummer day I found myself hoping that the love I have found is less ethereal than  the scent of a rose, that it can endure as James's love has.

我握着他瘦削枯老的手，他向我微微笑着，眼里不免有些伤感。尽管那是如此美丽的一个仲夏午后，我发现自己在心里默默祈祷着，但愿我所找到的爱情不要像玫瑰花香那么虚无缥缈，而能像老人的爱情那般持久隽永。

To nurture this love so it can endure throughout our lives, even through the infirmities虚弱,疾病 old age may bring, to care for one another and love one anoter even beyond the boundary that seperates this existence from  the next is my hope. Perhaps our love can remain as strong and as sweet as  the roses that have endured and bloomed all these years, and be a thing of beauty, a joy forever.

我也希望，我们能精心培育爱情，使其足以延续一生一世，哪怕年老体弱、满身病痛之时，也不离不弃；关爱彼此，纵然生死相隔，仍能始终不渝。也许这样，我们的爱情就能和这些玫瑰花一样经久不衰、繁盛绚丽，永远甜蜜、喜悦。