And also do we turn to salute Miss Liberty.
This series of adventure tales began with the Statue of Liberty
fading rearward through the harbor mists. It draws to a close
with the same old lady looming through those same mists and drawing
ever closer and closer. She certainly does look well this afternoon,
doesn't she? She always does look well, somehow.
We slip past her and on past the Battery too; and are nosing up
the North River. What a picturesque stream it is, to be sure! And
how full of delightful rubbish! In twenty minutes or less we shall
be at the dock. Folks we know are there now, waiting to welcome
us.
As close as we can pack ourselves, we gather in the gangways.
Some one raises a voice in song. 'Tis not the Marseillaise hymn
that we sing, nor Die Wacht am Rhein, nor Ava Maria, nor God Save
the King; nor yet is it Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. In their
proper places these are all good songs, but we know one more
suitable to the occasion, and so we all join in. Hark! Happy
voices float across the narrowing strip of rolly water between
ship and shore:
"'Mid pleasures and palaces,
Though we may roam,
(Now then, altogether, mates:)
Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like
HOME!"
End of Europe Revised by Irvin S. Cobb
