e home of my childhood,
of my earliest and my dearest friends, lay bathed in the soft moonlight
of a summer's eve. There, rose the ample dome of the cathedral in all
the majesty of its splendid arch, the golden tracery glittering with
the night dew; here, wound the placid Elbe, its thousand eddies through
purple and blushing vineyards, its fair surface flashing into momentary
brilliancy, as the ripples broke upon the buttresses of that graceful
bridge, long accounted the most beautiful in Europe; while from the
boat that lay sleeping upon its shadow came the rich tones of some manly
voices, bearing to my ear the evening hymn of my fatherland! Oh, how
strong within the heart of the wanderer in distant lands is the love of
country!--how deeply rooted amid all the feelings which the cares and
trials of after-life scatter to the wind! It lives on, bringing to our
old age the only touch and trace of the bright and verdant feelings of
our youth. And oh, how doubly strong this love, when it comes teeming
with a flood of long-forgotten scenes--the memory of our first, best
friends--the haunts of our boyhood--the feats of youthful daring--and,
far more than all, the recollection of that happy home, around whose
hearth we met with but looks of kindness and affection, where our
sorrows were soothed, our joys shared in! For me, 'tis true, there
remained nought of this. The parents who loved me had gone to their dark
homes--the friends of my childhood had doubtless forgotten me. Years of
absence had left me but the scenes of past happiness--the actors were
gone. And thus it was as I looked down upon the city of my native land.
The hour which in solitude and lowness of heart I had longed and prayed
for had at length arrived--that hour which I believed in my heart would
repay me for all the struggles, the cares, the miseries of fourteen
years of exile; and now I stood upon that self-same spot where I had
turned to take a farewell look of my native city, which I was leaving
poor, unfriended, and unknown, to seek in Italy those opportunities my
forlorn condition had denied to me at home. Years of toil and anxiety
had followed; the evils of poverty had fallen on me; one by one the
cheerful thoughts and bright fancies of youth deserted me; yet still I
struggled on, unshaken in courage. The thought of one day returning
to my loved Saxon land, rich in reputation, crowned with success, had
sustained and upheld me. And now that hour was come--m