“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 America
On 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!”