With yearnings for his home!
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.
He wept! The stars of Afric’s heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,
E’en on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years!—
O Happiness! how far we flee
Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!
[328] Bruce’s mingled feelings on arriving at the source of the Nile, are thus portrayed by him:—“I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains of the Nile, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill. I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy.”