"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!" III That midnight when the moon was tall I walked alone by the white lake--yet with a vanished race And with a race to come. To walk with dead men is to pray, To walk with men unborn--to find the way. I have seen many days. That night I watched them all. I have seen many a sign and trace Of beauty and of hope: An elm at night; an arrowy waterfall; The illimitable round unbroken scope Of life; a friend's unfrightened dying face. Though I have heard the cry of fear in crowded loneliness of space, Dead laughter from the lips of lust, Anger from fools, falsehood from sycophants, (My fear, my lips, my anger, my disgrace) Though I have held a golden cup and tasted rust, Seen cities rush to be defiled By the bright-fevered and consuming sin Of making only coin and lives to count it in, Yet once I watched with Celia, Watched on a ferry an Italian child, One whom America Had changed. His cheek was hardy and his mouth was frail For sweetness, and his eyes were opening wild As with wonder at an unseen figure carrying a grail. Perhaps he faced, as I did in his glance, The spirit of the living dead who, having ranged Through long reverses, forward without fail Carry deliverance From privilege and disinheritance, Until their universal soul shall prove The only answer to the ache of love.