The Dream of Flight
Wilbur Wright
“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.”
Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) was an American bicycle mechanic turned pioneer of aviation who, along with his brother, Orville, designed, built, and flew the first powered airplane. Although this is not technically a poem, it is sufficiently poetic to classify it as such.
First Flight over My Garden from Le Catinque de l’Aile
by Edmond Rostand
trans. Timothy Sandefur
I had a garden in the hills, it’s my retreat.
But this evening, rising from the countryside
The aeroplane, followed by some shepherds’ eyes,
Arrived and inflicted a blow against my peace.
So low the tiles on my roof began to shake,
This beast—there are no mountains anymore for him—
Passed above my garden like a Spanish wind,
Casting shadows on my sand, reflections on my lake.
I wanted to be mad, you lovely canvas beast.
I love to watch the eagles, stars up in the east;
I came up to these hills to seek a calm abode
And keep all to myself this rolling sky.
—But instead it was with tears of joy and pride
That I wept to see my sky become a road.
Edmond Rostand (1868–1916) was a French poet and writer best known as the creator of Cyrano de Bergerac.
“To a Skylark”
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow’d.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aëreal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embower’d
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower’d,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken’d flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match’d with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest: but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was a notable poet in the English Romantic movement, known for writing the verse drama Prometheus Unbound.
The Arrow and the Song
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was an American poet and educator best known for writing “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
Sympathy
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) was an American poet, novelist, and playwright. The title of Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was inspired by Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy,” which resonates with themes of confinement and her longing for freedom.
High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee Jr.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee Jr. (1922–1941) was a Canadian Air Force fighter pilot and war poet.
(W)right You Are!
by Eva Roerner and Felix du Bois-Reymond
There was a man from the United States of America: Wright!
The police, man and horse,
came out in full force,
when he went for his afternoon flight.
Eva Roerner (1889–1977) was a German painter and printmaker. Felix du Bois-Reymond was a German writer.
The Flying Wonder
by Stephen Vincent Benet
Said Orville Wright to Wilbur Wright,
“These birds are very trying.
I’m sick of hearing them cheep-cheep
About the fun of flying.
A bird has feathers, it is true.
That much I freely grant.
But must that stop us, W?”
Said Wilbur Wright, “It shan’t.”
And so they built a glider, first,
And then they built another.
–There never were two brothers more
Devoted to each other.
They ran a dusty little shop
For bicycle repairing.
And bought each other soda-pop
And praised each other’s daring.
They glided here, they glided there,
They sometimes skinned their noses.
–For learning how to rule the air
Was not a bed of roses–
But each would murmur, afterward,
While patching up his bro.
“Are we discouraged, W?”
“Of course we are not, O!”
And finally, at Kitty Hawk
In Nineteen-Three (let’s cheer it!),
The first real aeroplane really flew
With Orville there to steer it!
–And kingdoms may forget their kings
And dogs forget their bites,
But not till Man forgets his wings,
Will men forget the Wrights.
Stephen Vincent Benet (1898–1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist.
Astronomy
by James T. Franklin
Oh science sequestered much,
And by wisdom’s gentler touch,
Accelerated more!
Did not they voice give the command
That man must venture from his strand
In quest of other distant land,
Or was it ancient lore?
For sure into his peaceful breast,
Thou breathed the spirit of unrest,
And bade him search the skies:
Thou pictured earth a moving sphere
Whose revolutions make the year,
And whispered to his listening ear,
“Search heaven and be wise.”
Thy presence round him, charming fell.
And break did it the magic spell
That ignorance had wrought:
And plain did seem the merry race
Of myriad planets thrown in space—
Just how each kept in his place,
Has fostered wondrous thought.
And oft the would-be infidel
Has list the story that you tell
And wisely gave a nod;
For now the planet checkered sky
And tangle comments hissing by
Have seized and borne his thoughts on high,
Acknowledging a God.
No day has dawned, no sunbeam shone,
Where thought of man has not yet gone:
And the rugged panoply,
Encasing of his mental frame,
Doth burst with unbounding fame
And conquers heaven in thy name,
Science of the canopy.
Ah! could the Alexander brave
Be resurrected from his grave?
Weep he would no more,
That no worlds to conquer still
He had; for science would fulfil
The very letter of his will,
Of worlds, would give him more.
James T. Franklin (active 1890–1902) was an American poet who wrote poetry for the 1899–1900 Paris World’s Fair.
Big Kite
by Craig Biddle
My father gave to me a kite,
But I’d no need in its lone flight;
For though it had a nine-foot span,
’Twas not enough to lift this man.
I took it down to old Byrd Park;
On one small face it made its mark.
There was a boy that it could lift;
My present then became my gift.
His small face grew to big brown eyes;
My hand held out, “See if it flies.”
Big wind picked up as if on cue—
Big kite. Big day. Big high it flew.
Now when in flight that kite I see,
It is enough to lift—lift me.
Craig Biddle (1962-present) is the editor-in-chief of The Objective Standard and executive director of Objective Standard Institute. He wrote this poem when he was nineteen years old.
In Honor of Charles Lindbergh
by Efrén Rebolledo
Like the spirits
That Dante placed in the Realm of God
Comes flying through the ether
Like a flash of light
To alight bonfires of enthusiasm in our bosom
And illuminate our minds with the light of hope.
Efrén Rebolledo (1877–1929) was a Mexican orientalist, poet, diplomat, and lawyer.
This article appears in the Spring 2026 issue of The Objective Standard.