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!

* * * * *

Although the narrative of my journey, "with knapsack and staff," is now
strictly finished, a few more words of explanation seem necessary, to
describe more fully the method of traveling which we adopted. I add them
the more willingly, as it is my belief that many, whose circumstances
are similar to mine, desire to undertake the same romantic journey. Some
matter-of-fact statements may be to them useful as well as interesting.

We found the pedestrian style not only by far the best way to become
acquainted with the people and sceneryof a country, but the pleasantest
mode