Free Journey Between Worlds by Sylvia Engdahl

common.” He sounded really glad about it, not just polite. “Did you ever stop to think what a coincidence it was, the first Elizabethan Age being the time of the first attempt to colonize North America, and the second Elizabethan Age being when the first offworld base was established on the Moon?”
    I hadn’t, in spite of Dad’s folks being English and my having had world history in school as well as American history. But I knew about the starting of the Virginia colonies: the lost one, on Roanoke Island, and the one that succeeded, which became Jamestown. “That must have been an exciting age to live in,” I said.
    â€œYes,” he agreed. “But no more so than the early twenty-first century, do you think?”
    â€œWell, more romantic, anyway.”
    â€œReally?” He paused, then went on, “There’s a poem I like, about the colonization of America, Western Star, by Stephen Vincent Benét. Have you ever read it?”
    â€œI don’t think so. Do you know it by heart?”
    â€œWell, not all of it; it’s a whole book. I guess I remember one piece that particularly impressed me, though. One that refers to that same Virginia colony.”
    â€œGo ahead,” I urged.
    â€œI’ll try.” He thought for a moment, then began slowly, recalling each line. If there were gaps, they weren’t noticeable.
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    Is there Cathay beyond? Can Englishmen
Live there and plant there and breed there?
No one knows.
And yet, I know this much. It must be tried.
My one man’s life hath seen this England grow
Into a giant from a stripling boy
Who fenced about him with a wooden sword
And prattled of his grandsire’s wars. . . .
—The long, ruinous wars that sucked us dry,
. . . Nightmare, endless wars. . . .
Then we turned seaward. Then the trumpets blew.
And, suddenly, after the bloodshot night And the gropings in
the dark,
There were new men, new ships, and a new world.
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    There was another brief pause, and I was about to speak; but Alex remembered more and went on.
    And yet, how did we dare, how did we dare! . . .
How did we dare to send our sailors out
Beyond all maps? . . .
I should know well, having some part in it,
And I look backwards on it, and I see
A grave young madman in a sober dress
Who, each day, plans impossibilities
And, every evening, sees without surprise
The punctual, fresh miracle come true.
And such were all of us. . . .
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    â€œThat says it beautifully,” I said. “How people of those times must have felt.”
    â€œOf course. But can you guess what really strikes me about it?”
    â€œBesides what I just said?”
    â€œYes. It’s about more than just the founding of Virginia. If you think of ‘Cathay’ in a symbolic sense, you only have to change three words in that excerpt to make it apply equally well to the exploration of space.”
    â€œWhat three words?”
    â€œYou just substitute ‘Earthmen’ for ‘Englishmen,’ ‘Earth’ for ‘England,’ and ‘spaceward’ for ‘seaward.’ ”
    I thought about it. “Why, that’s true! Only make it ‘Terra’ instead of ‘Earth,’ so as not to spoil the meter.” (It does work; he wrote it out for me later. I still have it in the folder where I keep hard copy.)
    Alex smiled at me. “You’ll do well in literature, besides in history.”
    Shyly, I smiled back. I tried to imagine Ross quoting poetry, and I couldn’t. Not that Ross wouldn’t be capable of remembering it; he had a memory like a computer for anything to do with finance or politics. He wasn’t a bit like the men who can’t talk on any topic except sports. But he never stopped to consider what would be likely to interest me. It was nice to be asked to share, for a change.
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    Astonishingly soon, the flight attendant was asking Alex to strap down again for