ships, ships, i will descrie you
amidst the main,
i will e and try you,
what you are proteg,
and projeg,
whats your end and aim.
one goes abroad for merdise and trading,
aays to keep his try from invading,
a third is ing home with rid wealthy lading.
hallo! my fancie, whither wilt thou go?
old poem.
to an ameri visiting europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. the temporary absence of worldly ses and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly ?tted to receive new and vivid impressions. the vast space of waters that separate the hemispheres is like a blank page iehere is no gradual transition by which, as in europe, the features and population of one try blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. from the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacy, until you step on the opposite shore, and are lau oo the bustle and ies of another world.
in travelling by land there is a tinuity of se, and a ected succession of persons and is, that carry oory of life, and lessen the effect of absend separation.
we drag, it is true, "a lengthening " at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the is unbroken; we trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last still grapples us to home. but a wide sea voyage severs us at o makes us scious of being cast loose from the secure anche of settled life, a adrift upon a doubtful world. it interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes--a gulf, subjepest, and fear, and uainty, rendering distance palpable, aurn precarious.
such, at least, was the case with myself. as i saw the last blue lines of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if i had closed one volume of the world and its s, and had time for meditation, before i opened another.
that land, too, now vanishing from my view, which tained all most dear to me in life; what vicissitudes might occur in it--what ges might take pla me, before i should visit it again! who tell, whes forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uain currents of existence; or when he may return; or whether it may be ever his lot to revisit the ses of his childhood?
i said, that at sea all is vacy; i should correct the impression. to one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders of the deep a
（本章未完）