Aviator, 1928
Nothing can stay miraculous for long:
After he’d logged a hundred hours among
The clouds that for a hundred generations
Bewitched the impotent imaginations
Of men who lived and died upon the ground,
Even the most romantic pilot found
He barely registered the wisps of white
Beckoning him to that inhuman height,
Reduced now to another province of
The known, which is as tedious above
As down below. The aviator’s face,
Solemn with all the bravery and grace
He hasn’t yet discovered matter less
Than unimaginative steadiness,
Is what remains of the antique desire
To leave ourselves behind by going higher.