When I heard Celia speak, Cities were populous With peace and oceans echoed glories in her ear And from her risen thought Her lips had brought, As from some peak Down through the clouds, a mountain-air To guide the lonely and uplift the weak. "Record it all," she told me, "more than merely this, More than the shine of sunset on our heads, more than a kiss, More than our rapt agreement and delight Watching the mountain mingle with the night.... Tell that the love of two incurs The love of multitudes, makes way And welcome for them, as a solitary star Brings on the great array. Go make a lovers' calendar," She said, "for every day." And when the sun had put away His dazzle, over the shadowy firs The solitary star came out.... So on some night To eyes of youth shall come my light And hers. II "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--