On one of our first days at sea, I caught a curlew, which came flying on weary wings towards us, and alighted on one of the boats. Two of his brethren, too much exhausted or too timid to do likewise, dropped flat on the waves and resigned themselves to their fate without a struggle. I slipped up and caught his long, lank legs, while he was resting with flagging wings and half-shut eyes. We fed him, though it was difficult to get anything down his reed-shaped bill; but he took kindly to our force-work, and when we let him loose on the deck, walked about with an air quite tame and familiar. He died, however, two days afterwards. A French pigeon, which was caught in the rigging, lived and throve during the whole of the passage.
A few days afterwards, a heavy storm came on, and we were all sleepless and sea-sick, as long as it lasted. Thanks, however, to a beautiful law of memory, the recollection of that dismal period soon lost its unpleasantness, while the grand forms of beauty the vexed ocean presented, will remain forever, as distinct and abiding images. I kept on deck as long as I could stand, watching the giant waves over which our vessel took her course. They rolled up towards us, thirty or forty feet in height—dark gray masses, changing to a beautiful vitriol tint, wherever the light struck through their countless and changing crests. It was a glorious thing to see our good ship mount slowly up the side of one of these watery lulls, till her prow was lifted high in air, then, rocking over its brow, plunge with a slight quiver downward, and plough up a briny cataract, as she struck the vale. I never before realized the terrible sublimity of the sea. And yet it was a pride to see how man—strong in his godlike will—could bid defiance to those whelming surges, and bravo their wrath unharmed.
We swung up and down on the billows, till we scarcely knew which way to stand. The most grave and sober personages suddenly found themselves reeling in a very undignified manner, and not a few measured their lengths on the slippery decks. Boxes and barrels were affected in like manner; everything danced around us. Trunks ran out from under the berths; packages leaped down from the shelves; chairs skipped across the rooms, and at table, knives, forks and mugs engaged in a general waltz and break down. One incident of this kind was rather laughable. One night, about midnight, the gale, which had been blowing violently, suddenly lulled, "as if," to use a sailor's phrase, "it had been chopped off!" Instantly the ship gave a tremendous lurch, which was the signal for a general breaking loose. Two or three others followed, so violent, that for a moment I imagined the vessel had been thrown on her beam ends. Trunks, crockery and barrels went banging down from one end of the ship to the other. The women in the steerage set up an awful scream, and the German emigrants, thinking we were in terrible danger, commenced praying with might and main. In the passage near our room stood several barrels, filled with broken dishes, which at every lurch went banging from side to side, jarring the board partition and making a horrible din. I shall not soon forget the Babel which kept our eyes open that night.
The 19th of May a calm came on. Our white wings flapped 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-ruflled 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.
On the 31st, the fortunate wind which carried us from the Banks, failed us about thirty-five miles from Sandy Hook. We 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 sea.
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,
Upon the murmuring darkness of the deep,
Broken by flashings, that the parted wave
Sends white and star-like throujch 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.
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 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!