I've had much leisure to be thinking of late.

A man has time to wonder and to speculate concerning life and what he's seen o' it when he's taking a long ocean voyage.

And I've been meditating on some curious contrasts.

I was in Australia when I heard of the coming of the war.
My boy John was with me, then; he'd come there tae meet his mither and me.

He went hame, straight hame; I went to San Francisco.
Noo I'm on ma way hame frae Australia again, and again I've made the lang journey by way of San Francisco and the States.