The Traveller at the Source of the Nile

In sunset's light, o'er Afric thrown, A wanderer proudly stood Beside the well-spring, deep and lone, Of Egypt's awful flood; The cradle of that mighty birth, So long a hidden thing to earth!

He heard its life's first murmuring sound, A low mysterious tone; A music sought, but never found, By kings and warriors gone; He listened—and his heart beat high— That was the song of victory! The rapture of a conqueror's mood Rush'd burning through his frame,— The depths of that green solitude Its torrents could not tame; Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile— Round those far fountains of the Nile.

Night came with stars:—across his soul There swept a sudden change, E'en at the pilgrim's glorious goal A shadow dark and strange Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall O'er triumph's hour—and is this all?*

No more than this!—what seem'd it now First by that spring to stand? A thousand streams of lovelier flow Bathed his own mountain land! Whence far o'er waste and ocean track, Their wild sweet voices called him back.

They called him back to many a glade, His childhood's haunt of play, Where brightly through the beechen shade Their waters glanced away; They called him, with their sounding waves, Back to his fathers' hills and graves.

But darkly mingling with the thought Of each familiar scene, Rose up a fearful vision, fraught With all that lay between; The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom, The whirling sands, the red simoom!

Where was the glow of power and pride? The spirit born to roam? His altered heart within him died With yearnings for his home! All vainly struggling to repress That gush of painful tenderness.

He wept—the stars of Afric's heaven Behold his bursting tears, E'en on that spot where fate had given The meed of toiling years! —Oh, happiness! how far we flee Thine own sweet paths in search of thee! F. H.