The Home

I paced alone on the road across the field while the sunset was hiding its last gold like a miser ^[1] .

The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the darkness, and the widowed ^[2] land, whose harvest had been reaped ^[3] , lay silent.

Suddenly a boy's shrill ^[4] voice rose into the sky. He traversed ^[5] the dark unseen, leaving the track of his song across the hush ^[6] of the evening.

His village home lay there at the end of the waste land, beyond the sugar-cane ^[7] field, hidden among the shadows of the banana and the slender areca palm , the cocoa-nut ^[8] and the dark green jack-fruit ^[9] tress.

I stopped for a moment in my lonely way under the starlight, and saw spread before me the darkened earth surrounding with her arms countless homes furnished with cradles ^[10] and beds, mothers' hearts and evening lamps, and young lives glad with a gladness that knows nothing of its value for the world.

[1] miser [ˈmaizə] n．守财奴；财迷

[2] widowed [ˈwidəud] v. （widow的过去分词） [罕用语]从……夺走

[3] reap [ri:p] v．收割，从（地里）收割庄稼

[4] shrill [ʃril] a．尖声的

[5] traverse [ˈtrævəs] v．越过，穿过

[6] hush [hʌʃ] n．安静，寂静

[7] sugar-cane [ˈʃuɡəˌkein] n. 【植物】甘蔗

[8] cocoa-nut [ˈkəukəˌnʌt] n. （=coconut）椰子

[9] jack-fruit [ˈdʒækfru:t] n. 【植物】木菠萝

[10] cradle [ˈkreidl] n．摇篮