填空题

To develop a little the line of the poet Edmund Spenser, who in the sixteenth century wrote, " Sweet Thames run softly, till I end my song": it still runs softly enough but could never be called sweet in any gustatory (1) . If its brown-black color (2) sound sufficient warning we could, but will (3) recalling the dreadful things that Thames oarsmen say a mere mouthful will do to anyone (4) . Probably Spenser was using the word "sweet" in the sense of "dear" rather than of (5) . Not necessarily though, for the river was still, a century after Spenser, clear enough for (6) to dive into it from the terraces of their waterside mansions. However, Spenser would probably (7) to learn that today the river is chemically in better shape than it has been for many years—a fact borne out by the (8) of fish now to be found, and angled for, in the reaches of Central London, that is, between, (9) , Battersea and Tower Bridges.
More important, perhaps, than its (10) or opacity, the Thames is an (11) vantage point from which to see London, (12) how the great machine works and how it has changed. The river traffic was once brisker: engravings of the Thames around London Bridge (13) depict almost as many craft on the water as buildings on the bank. Traders and ferries plied up, down and across, (14) at the numerous water-steps and warehouses (15) . For Romantics, seeking a location to sympathize with a mood, this is free; the river is a (16) source. By night the floodlighting of St. Paul’s, the myriad bulbs on Chelsea Bridge, (17) the black liquid ribbon that winds between them. By day there are a hundred visits to make the spirit (18) , from Westminster to the Pool of London, and downstream to Greenwich. In a gender mood it is pleasant to move upstream, where the river seems narrower, and there imitate the mud-larks, (19) the shore at Strand-on-the-Green or Isleworth; it is calmer here, and (20) ducks seems almost to bring a whiff of the open countryside.