Round the World by Andrew Carnegie
page 13 of 306 (04%)
page 13 of 306 (04%)
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got to bed at last, but who could sleep after such a day--after
such a week! The ceaseless motion, with the click, click, click of the wheels--our sweet lullaby apparently this had become--was wanting; and then the telegrams from home, which bade us Godspeed, the warm, balmy air of Italy, when we had left winter behind--all this drove sleep away; and when drowsiness came, what apparitions of Japanese, Chinese, Indians, elephants, camels, josses! passed through our brain in endless procession. We were at the Golden Gate; we had just reached the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and before us lay ... "the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. To every blink the livelong night there came this refrain, which seemed to close each scene of Oriental magnificence that haunted the imagination: "And our gude ship sails ye morn, And our gude ship sails ye morn." Do what I would, the words of the old Scotch ballad would not down. Sleep! who could sleep in such an hour? Dead must be the man whose pulse beats not quicker, and whose enthusiasm is not enkindled when for the first time he is privileged to whisper to himself, The East! the East! "And our gude ship sails ye morn." |
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