ON THE ATLANTIC.

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idly on the mast, and only the top-gallant sails were bent enough occasionally to lug us along at a mile an hour. A barque from Ceylon, making the most of the wind, with every rag of canvass set, passed us slowly on the way eastward. The sun went down unclouded, and a glorious starry night brooded over us. Its clearness and brightness were to me indications of America. I longed to be on shore. The forests about home were then clothed in the delicate green of their first leaves, and that bland weather embraced the sweet earth like a blessing of heaven. The gentle breath from out the west seemed made for the odor of violets, and as it came to me over the slightly-ruffled deep, I thought how much sweeter it were to feel it, while "wasting in wood-paths the voluptuous hours."

Soon afterwards a fresh wind sprung up, which increased rapidly, till every sail was bent to the full. Our vessel parted the brine with an arrowy glide, the ease and grace of which it is impossible to describe. The breeze held on steadily for two or three days, which brought us to the southern extremity of the Banks. Here the air felt so sharp and chilling, that I was afraid we might be under the lee of an iceberg, but in the evening the dull gray mass of clouds lifted themselves from the horizon, and the sun set in clear, American beauty away beyond Labrador. The next morning we were enveloped in a dense fog, and the wind which bore us onward was of a piercing coldness. A sharp look-out was kept on the bow, but as we could see but a short distance, it might have been dangerous had we met one of the Arctic squadron. At noon it cleared away again, and the bank of fog was visible a long time astern, piled along the horizon, reminding me of the Alps, as seen from the plains of Piedmont.

We

On the 31st, the fortunate wind which carried us from the Banks, failed us about thirty-five miles from Sandy Hook. lay in the midst of the mackerel fishery, with small schooners anchored all around us. Fog, dense and impenetrable, weighed on the moveless ocean, like an atmosphere of wool. The only incident to break the horrid monotony of the day, was the arrival of a pilot, with one or two newspapers, detailing the account of the Mexican war. We heard in the afternoon the booming of the surf along the low beach of Long Island-hollow and faint, like

the murmur of a shell. When the mist lifted a little, we saw the faint line of breakers along the shore. The Germans gathered on deck to sing their old, familiar songs, and their voices blended beautifully together in the stillness.

Next morning at sunrise we saw Sandy Hook; at nine o'clock we were telegraphed in New York by the station at Coney Island; at eleven the steamer "Hercules" met us outside the Hook; and at noon we were gliding up the Narrows, with the whole ship's company of four hundred persons on deck, gazing on the beautiful shores of Staten Island and agreeing almost universally, that it was the most delightful scene they had ever looked upon. And now I close the story of my long wandering, as I began it -with a lay written on the deep.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

Farewell to Europe! Days have come and gone
Since misty England set behind the sca.
Our ship climbs onward o'er the lifted waves,
That gather up in ridges, mountain-high,
And like a sea-god, conscious in his power,
Buffets the surges. Storm-arousing winds
That sweep, unchecked, from frozen Labrador,
Make wintry music through the creaking shrouds.
Th' horizon's ring, that clasps the dreary view,
Lays mistily upon the gray Atlantic's breast,
Shut out, at times, by bulk of sparry blue,
That, rolling near us, heaves the swaying prow
High on its shoulders, to descend again
Ploughing a thousand cascades, and around
Spreading the frothy foam. These watery gulfs,
With storm, and winds far-sweeping, hem us in,
Alone upon the waters!

Days must pass—

Many and weary-between sea and sky.

Our eyes, that long e'en now for the fresh green
Of sprouting forests, and the far blue stretch
Of regal mountains piled along the sky,
Must see, for many an eve, the level sun
Sheathe, with his latest gold, the heaving brine,
By thousand ripples shivered, or Night's pomp
Brooding in silence, ebon and profound,

HOMEWARD BOUND.

Upon the murmuring darkness of the deep,
Broken by flashings, that the parted wave
Sends white and star-like through its bursting foam.
Yet not more dear the opening dawn of heaven
Poured on the earth in an Italian May,
When souls take wings upon the scented air
Of starry meadows, and the yearning heart
Pains with deep sweetness in the balmy time,
Than these gray morns, and days of misty blue,
And surges, never-ceasing;-for our prow
Points to the sunset like a morning ray,

And o'er the waves, and through the sweeping storms,
Through day and darkness, rushes ever on,
Westward and westward still! What joy can send
The spirit thrilling onward with the wind,

In untamed exultation, like the thought

That fills the Homeward Bound?

Country and home!

Ah! not the charm of silver-tongued romance,
Born of the feudal time, nor whatsoe'er
Of dying glory fills the golden realms
Of perished song, where heaven-descended Art
Still boasts her later triumphs, can compare
With that one thought of liberty inherited-
Of free life giv'n by fathers who were free,
And to be left to children freer still!
That pride and consciousness of manhood, caught
From boyish musings on the holy graves

Of hero-martyrs, and from every form

Which virgin Nature, mighty and unchained,
Takes in an empire not less proudly so-
Inspired in mountain airs, untainted yet
By thousand generations' breathing-felt
Like a near presence in the awful depths
of unhewn forests, and upon the steep
Where giant rivers take their maddening plunge-
Has grown impatient of the stifling damps
Which hover close on Europe's shackled soil.
Content to tread awhile the holy steps

Of Art and Genius, sacred through all time,
The spirit breathed that dull, oppressive air—
Which, freighted with its tyrant-clouds, o'erweighs
The upward throb of many a nation's soul-
Amid those olden memories, felt the thrall,

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But kept the birth-right of its freer home.
Here, on the world's blue highway, comes again
The voice of Freedom, heard amid the roar
Of sundered billows, while above the wave
Rise visions of the forest and the stream.
Like trailing robes the morning mists uproll,
Torn by the mountain pines; the flashing rills
Shout downward through the hollows of the vales;
Down the great river's bosom shining sails
Glide with a gradual motion, while from all-
Hamlet, and bowered homestead, and proud town—
Voices of joy ring far up into heaven!

Yet louder, winds! Urge on our keel, ye waves,
Swift as the spirit's yearnings! We would ride
With a loud stormy motion o'er your crests,
With tempests shouting like a sudden joy—
Interpreting our triumph! 'Tis your voice,
Ye unchained elements, alone can speak
The sympathetic feeling of the free-

The arrowy impulse of the Homeward Bound!

I shall not attempt to describe the excitement of that afternoon. After thirty-seven days between sky and water, any shore would have been beautiful, but when it was home, after we had been two years absent, during an age when time is always slow, it required a powerful effort to maintain any propriety of manner. The steward prepared a parting dinner, much better than any we had had at sea; but I tried in vain to eat. Never were trees such a glorious green as those around the Quarantine Buildings, where we lay to for half an hour, to be visited by the physician. The day was cloudy, and thick mist hung on the tops of the hills, but I felt as if I could never tire looking at the land.

At last we approached the city. It appeared smaller than when I left, but this might have been because I was habituated to the broad distances of the sea. Our scanty baggage was brought on deck, for the inspection of the custom-house officer, but we were neither annoyed nor delayed by the operation. The steamer by this time had taken us to the pier at Pine-street wharf, and the slight

LANDING AT NEW-YORK.

391

jar of the vessel as she came alongside, sent a thrill of delight through our frames. But when finally the ladder was let down, and we sprang upon the pier, it was with an electric shock, as if of recognition from the very soil. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and we were glad that night was so near at hand. After such strong excitement, and even bewilderment of feeling as we had known since morning, the prospect of rest was very attractive.

But no sooner were we fairly deposited in a hotel, than we must needs see the city again. How we had talked over this hour! How we had thought of the life, the neatness, the comfort of our American cities, when rambling through some filthy and depopulated capital of the Old World! At first sight, our anticipations were not borne out; there had been heavy rains for a week or two, and the streets were not remarkably clean; houses were being built up or taken down, on all sides, and the number of trees in full foliage, every where visible, gave us the idea of an immense unfinished country town. I took this back, it is true, the next morning, when the sun was bright and the streets were thronged with people. But what activity, what a restless eagerness and even keenness of expression on every countenance! I could not have believed that the general cast of the American face was so sharp; yet nothing was so remarkable as the perfect independence of manner which we noticed in all, down to the very children. I can easily conceive how this should jar with the feelings of a stranger, accustomed to the deference, not to say servility, in which the largest class of the people of Europe is trained; but it was a most refreshing change to us. Life at sea sharpens one's sensibilities to the sounds and scents of land, in a very high degree. We noticed a difference in the atmosphere of different streets, and in the scent of leaves and grass, which a land friend who was with us failed entirely to distinguish. The next day, as we left New-York, and in perfect exultation of spirit sped across New Jersey, (which was never half so beautiful to our eyes,) I could feel nothing but one continued sensation of the country-fragrant hay-field and wild clearing, garden and marshy hollow, and the cool shadow of the woodlands-I was by turns possessed with the spirit of them all. The twilight deepened as we