While I leaned over the ship’s bow, watching the moonbeams dancing on the glassy bosom of the deep—my ear soothed with the rippling of the vessel, as she urged her way through the waters,—I felt as if shut out from the world, and emancipated from its laws and control. At sea is the place for reflection and contemplation—there the memory, as if secure in her privacy, unlocks and draws forth her secret treasures, and broods over them with miser care.
Before me the softened outline of the distant coast of Scotland could be seen, its rugged points bursting through the gauzy film with which they were enveloped; but the well known rock of Ailsa stood forth in bold relief, its giant mass towering proudly above the waves, alike defying their fury and the hand of time. The sight of that rock, which the emigrant associates with the farewell to his country, called forth in my bosom a tide of recollections. When I last saw it, I was returning as now, from one of my wild adventures in search of happiness and fame; the result of both were nearly equal—misery and disappointment; the last, however, had been the most severe lesson, and I was now, like the prodigal son, retracing my way from a far country, where I had been glad, literally, to feed on the husks which formed the food of the swine. My past life glided in review before my mind, and I could not help exclaiming, What a fool have I been? I have bartered every privilege which was my birthright, in the pursuit of wild and vain dreams of renown and happiness. Setting aside the misery and hardship I have endured, has not the last six years of my life been a blank? That period of time employed in my education at home, what might I not have been? but my doom is fixed, I have sealed it myself—there was distraction in the thought.
That day I landed at Irvine, and resolved to pursue my journey homeward without stopping. As I travelled along, I felt that tumultuous fluttering and overflowing of the heart, and buoyancy of tread, which every sensitive being must have felt on re-visiting the land of his birth, after years of separation from all that was dear to him. The sun was setting when I reached the wood of Curcarth. It had been the haunt of many of my childish wanderings; there I had often roved, unconscious of where I was going. My soul, awed with the deep shade that the trees cast around, I trod as if on holy ground, while the ceaseless hum of its insect inhabitants, mingled with the wail of the cushat, cherished the deep pensive feeling which the scene had excited in my bosom. It was here that I first learned to commune with my own heart, and my imagination first soared into the realms of faëry. Near its margin was the stream, on whose banks I have lain listening to its murmuring, my gaze fixed on the world, portrayed in its transparent bosom so beautiful, so bright, I could scarcely believe it was not some world of spirituality, some realm of bliss. The scene was changed—winter had stripped it of all its attractions—the blast howled through the leafless trees—and the stream that had meandered so sweetly through the verdant plain, was now roaring down its channel with impetuous force. The scene was changed; but he who looked on it was not less so.
Morning of life! too soon o’ercast,
Young days of bliss, too dear to lose;
Ah! whither have thy visions past
That brighten’d all my childish views?
For never yet when poets muse,
Or maidens dream in bowers alone,
Were glorious visions more profuse,