welcome then

Niagara Falls - Horseshoe Falls, looking upstream the Niagara River
Photo courtesy of Tiiu Roiser from  www.freetiiupix.cwahi.net

Both texts quoted below were first published in the summer of 1852; and in both the introductory phrase "welcome then" is closely followed by and associated with links and chains, images of painful failure and bondage.  "I. F." you remember stands for "Imaginary Friend." 

I. F.  Ay! it is a fire that consumes; and sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men, and leaves but wrecks, mournfully floating upon the dull currents of life.

C.  And welcome then, the rapids and the final plunge! Yes: the struggle is ever, and leads us sorrowing to the dark portals which shut out the life beyond. There may this holy fire from Heaven find more happy sympathy. Here, amid ages of pain, it grants us but moments of felicity....  

... Ah me! We are not only chained to the rock, but galled by all the thousand links,—the petty cares of life!
(July 1852, Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

Welcome then be Ugliness and Poverty and Infamy, and all ye other crafty ministers of Truth, that beneath the hoods and rags of beggars hide yet the belts and crowns of kings. And dimmed be all beauty that must own the clay; and dimmed be all wealth, and all delight, and all the annual prosperities of earth, that but gild the links, and stud with diamonds the base rivets and the chains of Lies.
(Pierre, 1852)