No alien land in all the world has any deep, strong charm for me but that one; no other land could so longingly and beseechingly tempt me, sleeping and waking, through half a life-time, as that one has done.
Other things leave me, but that abides; other things change, but that remains the same.

For me, its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun, the pulsing of its surfbeat is in my ears.

I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud rack.

I can hear the spirits of its woodland solitudes, I can hear the splash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of the flowers that perished twenty years ago.

And these world wanderers that sit before me here have lately looked upon these things, and with eyes of the flesh, not the unsatisfying vision of the spirit.