# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Approach to England

APPROACH TO ENGLAND.
Land! Land!—The sailor hears no sweeter sound;
And the tired voyager leaps up, to catch
Through lifted glass yon misty line, that marks On the horizon's edge his destined goal.
Warm-hearted Erin, to the utmost verge
Of old Kinsale, dipping her snowy foot
In the cold surge, came forth, and held a light,
And breathed good wishes on our midnight way.
But then we lost her, and went groping on,
Day after day, fog-wrapt and full of fear,
O'er the vexed Channel, the resounding lead
Probing its depths, and he who ruled our bark
Sleepless, and marked with care for those, who gave
Both life and fortune to his faithful charge.
Would that I loved thee, Ocean!
 I had heard
Much of thy praise, in story and in song,
And oft by fancy lured, was half prepared
To worship thee. But 't is a weary life
To be a child of thine. Thou hast a smile
Of witching sweetness, yet thy moods are strange,
And thy caprices terrible.
 Of these
I was forewarned, however, and complain
Less of thy frowns, than thine indulgences.
Thine everlasting rocking makes the soul
Peevish and sick, like an o'er-cradled child;
And thy protracted calmness lulls the mind
To dreamy idleness, stealing away
That industry, in which is half our bliss.
Things from their nature and their proper use
Thou seem'st to turn. The book we fain would read
Leaps from our hand, or cheats the swimming sight.
The needle pricks our fingers, and the pen
Makes zigzag lines. If still we persevere
To write against thy will, with desperate zeal
Grasping the table, as the Jews of old
With one hand wrought upon their wall, and held
Their weapons with the other, down amain
By some unlucky lurch the ink-stand comes,
Deluging things most precious. Last resort
Is conversation, and with quickened zeal
We turn to that, reduced again to say
The hundredth time, what we had said before.
Yet, if perchance some witticism, or tale,
We've hoarded up, and bring exulting forth,
No smile repays our toil, the listener yawns,
For thou dost dim perception, and enwrap
Attention in a trance, and memory drive
To the four winds.
 Here sit a pair at chess,
Absorbed of course, and there another group,
Who, scarcely keep a show of life, to drag
Some other drowsy game. Still wiser those,
Who to the dull necessity of things
Yielding perforce, on sofa, or on chair,
Doze oyster-like.
 I would not wish to be
Fastidious, or too difficult to please;
Yet I've a fondness now and then to tread
On something firm, and not be always dashed
Against the wall when walking, nor in sleep
Tossed from the pillow to the state-room floor,
Aghast and ill at ease.
 Yet these are freaks
Doubtless unworthy to be kept in mind;
And we have much to thank thee for, Oh Deep!
And would not be ungrateful. Thou hast shown
Thy summer face, and poured thy bracing air
Salubrious round us, and called freely forth
Thy various actors on their tossing stage;
The kingly whale, the porpoise in huge shoals
Disporting heavily, the rough sea-horse
Churning the foam, like ponderous elephant,
The dolphin, fainting in his rainbow shroud,
The white gull, sailing through the blue serene,
And the faint land-bird, as it quivering hung
Mid our wet shrouds, to die.
 And when I've bowed
My soul to thee, thou hast not failed to breathe
A glorious thought therein, pointing to Him,
Who counts thy thunder as an infant's sigh.
And when thy mountain-waves, with solemn night
Upon their crests, went rushing on, to do
The secret bidding of the Invisible,
Oft hath their terrible beauty waked a thrill
Of rapturous awe, as if a spirit spake
From their dark depths of God.
 And thou didst spare
Our trembling vessel mid the breakers hoarse,
What time, by urgent winds propelled, she went
Down toward unpitying Bardsey's frightful reef.
What did I say? Thou spar'dst us!
 No. His hand
Who heareth prayer sustained us, as we ran
O'er wreck-paved Cardigan such fearful course,
As turned the proudest pale.
 And so, farewell!
I give thee thanks, but most of all rejoice
At our leave-taking.
 Lo! the pilot boat
Speeds like a dancing feather o'er the surge,
And the dim outline of the shore grows green,
Lifting its spires and turrets to the cloud.
O England, Mother-Land! how oft my heart
In its young musings hath gone out to thee
With filial love. For thou didst tell me tales
Of ancient times, and of the steel-clad knights,
Who battled for the truth, and of the lays
Of wandering minstrels, harping in thy halls,
Until I longed to see her face, whose voice
Could charm me so, even as the simple child,
Going to rest, asks for its mother's kiss.
Therefore have I come forth upon the wave,
I, whose most dear and unambitious joy
Was, 'neath the low porch of my vine-clad home,
To twine at early morn such tender shoots,
As the cool night put forth, or listening catch
The merry voices of my little ones
Lifting the blossoms from their turfy bed,
I have come strangely forth upon the wave,
To take thee by the hand, before I die.
Show me the birth-place of those bards of old,
Whose music moved me, as a mighty wind
Doth bow the reed. Show me their marble tombs,
Whose varied wisdom taught the awe-struck world,
Those giants of old time. Show me thy domes
And castellated towers, with ivy crowned,
The proud memorials of a buried race,
Pour on my ear thy rich Cathedral strain,
England, our mother, and to my far home
In the green West I will rejoicing turn,
Wearing thine image on my grateful heart.
Friday, August 21, 1840.
Our Voyage across the Atlantic had been eminently prosperous. From our departure from New York, August 1, 1840, we encountered no obstruction, during the seventeen days, that brought us to the Irish coast. Our good ship, the Europe, Captain Edward G. Marshall, surmounted the waves buoyantly, and often seemed to skim their surface, like a joyous bird. We almost imagined her to be conscious of the happiness she imparted, as seated on the deck, in the glorious summer moonlight, we saw her sweeping through the crested billows, with a pleasant, rushing sound, right onward in the way she ought to go.
Methought, also, the deep bestirred itself, to exhibit its dramatis personæ in good condition for our amusement. Immense families of porpoises rolled and gamboled; other huge creatures, seeming to have hideous ears, leaped and plunged heavily; and a whale, with her cub, glided onward, her huge mass inflated with a mother's pride and pleasure, as she led her promising monster to his ocean-play. The sun came forth from his chambers and returned again in glorious majesty, and the coming phosphorescence, contrasted with the fleecy crest and the purple base of the waves, was intensely beautiful.
​ Thus were we cheated along our watery way,—and by making the most of the scenery without, and the resources within, experienced as little ennui as could be expected, and indulged in no anticipation of evil. But that terror of mariners awaited us in St. George's Channel, a dense fog upon an iron-bound coast. We had joyfully seen the light in the head of old Kinsale; afterwards the harbor of Cork, and the mountains of Dungannon revealed themselves, and were lost. Then wrapped in a thick curtain, we went on fearfully with continual soundings. A chill rain occasionally fell,—and the winds moaned and cried among the shrouds, like living creatures. The faithful and attentive Captain, oppressed with a sense of his responsibility, scarcely took refreshment or repose. At midnight, on the 19th, we heard his voice cheerfully announcing, that a bright light from Tuscar Rock was visible, that our course was right, and that all might retire to rest, free from anxiety.
As morning dawned, I lay waking, and listening to sounds, that seemed near my ear and even upon my pillow. They were like water forcing its way among obstructions, or sometimes as if it were poured hissing upon heated stones. At length I spoke to the friend, who shared my state-room, of a suppressed voice of eddies and whirlpools, like what is often heard in passing Hurl-Gate, when the tide is low. She thought me imaginative; but on hearing that I had long been reasoning with myself, and yet the sounds remained, ​she threw on her dressing-gown and ascended to the deck. The fog was still heavy, and all things appeared as usual. Soon the Carpenter, being sent aloft to make some repairs, shouted in a terrible voice "breakers! breakers!" The mist lifted its curtain a little, and there was a rock sixty feet in height, against which the sea was breaking with tremendous violence, and towards which we were propelled by wind and tide. At the first appalling glance, it would seem that we were scarcely a ship's length from it. In the agony of the moment, the Captain clasping his hands exclaimed that all was lost. Still, under this weight of anguish, more for others than himself, he was enabled to give the most minute orders with entire presence of mind. They were promptly obeyed; the ship as if instinct with intelligence obeyed her helm, and sweeping rapidly around, escaped the jaws of destruction. Still we were long in troubled waters, and it was not for many hours, and until we had entirely past Holyhead, that the Captain took his eye from the glass, or quitted his post of observation. It would seem that, after he had retired to rest the previous night, the ship must have been imperfectly steered, and aided by the strong drifting of the tides in that region, was led out of her course towards Cardigan bay, thus encountering the reef which is laid down on the charts, as Bardsey's Isle.
The passengers, during this period of peril, were ​generally quiet, and offered no obstruction, through their own alarms, to the necessary evolutions on deck. One from the steerage, an Irishman, who had been thought, but a few days before, in the last stages of pulmonary disease, was seen, in the excitement of the moment, laboring among the ropes and blocks, as if in full health and vigor. It was fearful to see him, with a face of such mortal paleness, springing away from death in one form, to meet and resist him in another.
Every circumstance and personage, connected with that scene of danger, seem to adhere indelibly to recollection. A young girl came and sat down on the cabin floor, and said in a low, tremulous tone, "I have loved my Saviour, but have not been faithful to Him as I ought;" and in that posture of humility awaited His will.
A mother, who since coming on board had taken the entire charge of an infant not a year old, retired with it in her arms to a sofa, when the expectation of death was the strongest upon us all. Masses of rich, black hair fell over her brow and shoulders, as her eyes rivetted upon the nursling, with whom she might so soon go down beneath the deep waters. He returned that gaze with an almost equal intensity, and there they sat, uttering no sound, scarcely breathing, and pale as a group of sculptured marble. His large, dark eyes seemed to cast ​
"Not those baby looks that go
All unmeaning to and fro,
But an earnest gazing deep,
Such as soul gives soul at length,
When through work and wail of years It hath won a solemn strength."
In that strange communion was the mother imparting to her nursling her own speechless weight of agony, at parting with other beloved objects in their distant home? Or did the tender soul take upon itself a burden, which pressed from it a sudden ripeness of sympathy? Or was the intensity of prayer drawing the spirit of the child into that of the mother, until they were as one before God?
Strong lessons were learned at an hour like this. Ages of thought were compressed into a moment. The reach of an unbodied spirit, or some glimpse of the power, by which the deeds and motives of a whole life may be brought into view, at the scrutiny of the last judgment, seemed to reveal itself. Methought the affections, that so imperatively bind to earth, loosened their links in that very extremity of peril; and a strange courage sprang up, and the lonely soul, driven to one, sole trust, took hold of the pierced hand of the Redeemer, and found it strong to save.
That night the prayer and sacred music, which regularly hallowed our hour of retirement, should ​have been more deeply surcharged with devout gratitude than ever; snatched as we had been from the devouring flood, and from "the evil time, that snareth the sons of men, when it falleth suddenly upon them."