The earnest seeker and hopeful
discoverer of this New World always haunts the outskirts of his
time, and walks through the densest crowd uninterrupted, and as
it were in a straight line.
Sea and land are but his neighbors,
And companions in his labors,
Who on the ocean's verge and firm land's end
Doth long and truly seek his Friend.
Many men dwell far inland,
But he alone sits on the strand.
Whether he ponders men or books,
Always still he seaward looks,
Marine news he ever reads,
And the slightest glances heeds,
Feels the sea breeze on his cheek,
At each word the landsmen speak,
In every companion's eye
A sailing vessel doth descry;
In the ocean's sullen roar
From some distant port he hears,
Of wrecks upon a distant shore,
And the ventures of past years.
Who does not walk on the plain as amid the columns of Tadmore of
the desert? There is on the earth no institution which
Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no
scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple, nor even a
solitary column. There goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited,
but the shipwrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the
shore. The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the
monuments of inhabitants.
However, our fates at least are social.
