英语听书《白鲸记》第26期

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 You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding;for,they say,they have reservoirs of oil in every house,and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles. 

 In summer time,the town is sweet to see;full of fine maples² long avenues of green and gold.And in August, 

 high in air,the beautiful and bountiful horse chestnuts,candelabra wise,proffer the passer by their tapering³ upright cones⁴ of congregated⁵ blossoms. 

 So omnipotent⁶ is art;which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day. 

 And the women of New Bedford,they bloom like their own red roses.But roses only bloom in summer; 

 whereas the fine carnation⁷ of their cheeks is perennial⁸ as sunlight in the seventh heavens.Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs,ye can not,save in Salem, 

 where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk,their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore,as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands. 

 CHAPTER 7.The Chapel⁹. 

 In this same New Bedford there stands a's Whaleman Chapel,and few are the moody¹⁰ fishermen,shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, 

 who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot.I am sure that I did not. 

 Returning from my first morning stroll,I again sallied out upon this special errand.The sky had changed from clear,sunny cold,to driving sleet¹¹ and mist. 

 Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin,I fought my way against the stubborn storm.Entering,I found a small scattered¹² congregation of sailors,and sailors ' wives and widows. 

 A muffled¹³ silence reigned,only broken at times by the shrieks¹⁴ of the storm.Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, 

 as if each silent grief were insular¹⁵ and incommunicable.The chaplain had not yet arrived;and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly¹⁶ eyeing several marble tablets, 

 with black borders,masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. 

 Three of them ran something like the following,but I do not pretend to quote: 

 SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT,Who,at the age of eighteen,was lost overboard,Near the Isle¹⁷ of Desolation,off Patagonia,November 1st,1836.THIS TABLET Is erected¹⁸ to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. 

 SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG,WILLIS ELLERY,NATHAN COLEMAN,WALTER CANNY,SETH MACY, 

 AND SAMUEL GLEIG,Forming one of the boats ' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale,On the Off shore Ground in the PACIFIC, 

 December 31st,1839.THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES. 

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