Montgolfier, Franklin, von Zeppelin, Watt, Edison, an engine must be, spiral springs, Nor steam move not these more than condor wings Of heaven's Argonaut, Gathering the sun-set clouds for golden fleece. Santos Dumont and Langley, over these The Americans, the brothers Wright. America finds wings for flight. At last out of the New World wings are born To wheel far up where cold is, and a light Dazzling and immaculate, In the heights where stands the temple of the Morn. Winged Victory more beautiful than Samothrace's For the New World opening the gate Of heaven at last, where mortals enter in Unconquerably and win The great escape from earth, the measureless spaces Of air across the inimical abyss Between ethereal precipice and precipice. Hail! spirits of the race's Courage to be free, adventurers Of infinite desire! Hail! seed of the ancient wars, Of burning glasses, catapults, Greek fire! Hail! final conquerors, Out of whose vision greater vision springs-- America with wings! The vulture lags behind, the Gorgones, Revealed or ambushed in the thunder clouds, Would tear from heaven these audacities Of deathless spirit, shatter them and spill The blasphemy of genius from the sky. Gods are you, flyers, whom no danger shrouds, No terror shakes the will. Gods are you though you suffer and must die, Men winged as gods who fly! Borelli, in the centuries that are gone, With feathers made him wings, but steel Soars for the petrol demon's toil, Fed by the sap of trees far under earth In the long eons past turned into oil. The petrol demon in the enchanted coil Of lightning howls and spins the invisible wheel Which had its birth In the rapt vision of Archimides. Borelli, in the centuries that are gone, With feathers made him wings. But now a swan, A steel-borne beetle cleaves the immensities, Fed with fire of amber and oil of trees, And soars against the sun, And over mountains, seas! Flight more auspicious than the flight of cranes In Homer's Troyland, or than eagles flying Toward Imaus when the midnight wanes. Victorious flight! symbol of man defying Low dungeons of the spirit, darkness, chains. Flight beyond superstition and the reigns Of tyrannies where thought of man should be Swift as his thought is free. Flight of an era born to-day That puts the past and all its dead away. Locusts of the new Jehovah sent to scourge All Pharaohs who enslave. Hornets with multiple eyes, Scorning surprise, And armed to purge The despot and the knave Out of the fairer land where men shall live, Winning all things which were so fugitive Of wisdom, happiness and peace, Of hope, of spiritual release From fear of life, life's mean significance, Till life be ordered, not a thing of chance.