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!"