“Where are you bound, O solemn voyager?”

She laughed one day and asked me in her mirth:

“Where are you from?

Why are you come?”

.... The questions beat like tapping of a drum;

And how could I be dumb,

I who have bugles in me? Fast

The answer blew to her,

For all my breath was worth....

“As a bird comes by grace of spring,

You are my journey and my wing—

And into your heart, O Celia,

My heart has flown, to sing

Solemn and long

A most undaunted song.”

This was the song that she herself had taught me how to sing:

.... As immigrants come toward AmericaOn their continual ships out of the past,

So on my ship America have I, by birth,

Come forth at last

From all the bitter corners of the earth.

And I have ears to hear the westward wind blowing

And I have eyes to look beyond the scope Of sea

And I have hands to touch the hands

Of shipmates who are going

Wherever I go and the grace of knowing

That what for them is hope

Is hope for me.

I come from many times and many lands,

I look toward life and all that it shall hold,

Past bound and past divide.

And I shall be consoled

By a continent as wide

As the round invisible sky.

.... “The unseen shall become the seen....

O Celia, be my Spanish Queen!

The Genoan am I!”

And Celia cried:

“My jewels, they are yours,

Yours for the journey. Use them well.Go find the new world, win the shores

Of which the old books tell!

.... Yet will they listen, poet? Will they sail with you?

Will they not call you dreamer of a dream?

Will they not laugh at you, because you seem

Concerned with words that people often say

And deeds they never do?”

The bright sails of my caravel shook seaward in reply:

“Though I be told

A thousand facts to hold

Me back, though the old boundary

Rise up like hatred in my way,

Though fellow-voyagers cry,

‘A lie!’—

Here as I come with heaven at my side

None of the weary words they say

Remain with me,

I am borne like a wave of the sea

Toward worlds to be....

And, young and bold,

I am happier than they—

The timid unbelievers who grow old!”

She interceded: “How impatient, how unkind

You are! What secret do you know

To keep you young?

Age comes with keen and accurate advance

Against youth’s lightly handled lance.

Age is an ancient despot that has wrung

All hearts.”... My answer was the song forever sung:

“This that I need to know I know—

Onpouring and perpetual immigrants,

We join a fellowship beyond America

Yet in America....

Beyond the touch of age, my Celia,

In you, in me, in everyone, we join God’s growing mind.

For in no separate place or time, or soul, we find

Our meaning. In one mingled soul reside

All times and places. On a tide

Of mist and azure air

We journey toward that soul, through circumstance,

Until at last we fully care and dare

To make within ourselves divinity.”

“And what of all the others,” Celia said,

“Who ventured brave as you? What of the dead?”

Again I saw the halo in her hair

And said: “The dead sail forward, hid behind

This wave that we ourselves must mount to find

The eternal way.

Adventurers of long ago

Seeking a richer gain than earthy gold,

They have left for us, half-told,

Their guesses of the port, more numerous and blind

Than their unnumbered and forgotten faces.

... And though today, as then,

Death is a wind blowing them forward out of sight and out of mind,

Yet in familiar and in unfamiliar places

Inquiring by what means I may

The destination of the wind

Of death, I have found signs and traces

Of the way they go

And with a quicker heart I have beheld again

In visions, from my ship at sea,

The great new world confronting me,Where, yesterday,

Today, tomorrow, dwell my countrymen.”

And then I looked away,

Over the pasture and the valley, to the New Hampshire town....

And my heart’s acclaim went down,

To Florida, Wisconsin, California,

And brought a good report to Celia:

“My ship America,

This whole wide-timbered land,

Well captained and well manned,

Ascends the sea

Of time, carrying me

And many passengers.

And every cabin stirs

With the pulsing of its engine over the sway of time,

Yes, every state and city, every village, every farm,

And every heart and everyone’s right arm.

... Celia, hold out your hand,

Or anyone in any field or street, hold out your hand—And I can see it pulse the massive climb

And dip

Of this America,

My ship!”

“Why make your ship so small?

Can your America contain them all?”

How wisely I replied

In the province of my pride:

“But these are my own shipmates, these

Who share my ship America with me!

... On many seas

On other ships, even the ancient ships of Greece,

Have other immigrants set sail for peace.

But these are my own shipmates whom I see

At hand—these are my company.”

“What have you said,” she cried,

“Thinking you knew?

Whom have you called your shipmates? You were wrong!

Your ship is strong

With a more various crew

Than any one man’s country could provide,

To make it ride

So high and manifold and so complete.This is the engine-beat

Of life itself, the ship of ships.

There is no other ship among the stars than this.

The wind of death is a bright kiss

Upon the lips

Of every immigrant, as upon yours and mine—

Theirs is the stinging brine

And sun and open sea,

And theirs the arching sky, eternity.”

And Celia had my homage. I was wrong.

Immigrants all, one ship we ride,

Man and his bride

The journey through.

O let it be with a bridal-song!...

“My shipmates are as many as eternity is long:

The unborn and the living and the dead—

And, Celia, you!”