With hulls of steel now pushed by steam
     instead of ships of wood with sails,

We breast'd the crests of a watery world
     'mid bounding waves and hollowed swales --

New dimensions this entailed.

Long have men far left the shore
     and gone to ships to sea,

But in our day, as not before,
     there above the waves we'd be --

Unbound from decks, wings set us free.

So have we known both sea and sky
     and from wave-top wandered to the air.

We found our place in the added space
     that the heavens offered there.

As we soared aloft from floating lair.

Some day this, too, will be passé,
 but 'twas a way of sailors in our day. 

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