Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/202

156 He spoke, and scarcely from his burning lip

These echoes had beneficently flow'd,

When floating in the port, prepared the ship,

To give commencement to so blest a road,

Moved spreading her white canvas to the air.

On his fate launch'd himself the aëronaut.

Waves of the sea, in favouring calmness bear,

As sacred, this deposit to be brought

Through your serene and liquid fields. There goes

Of thousand generations long the hope;

Nor whelm it, nor let thunder it oppose;

Arrest the lightning, with no storms to cope,

Stay them until that from those fertile shores

Come forth the prows, triumphant in their pride,

That fraught remote with all their golden stores,

With vice and curses also come allied.

Honour to Balmis! O, heroic soul!

That in such noble toil devotest thy breath,

Go fearless to thy end. The dreadful roll

Of ocean always hoarse, and threatening death;

The fearful whirlpool's all-devouring throat,

The cavern'd rock's black face, where dash'd by fate,

Break the wreck'd barks, the dangers they denote

Greatest are not most cruel thee that wait.

From man expect them! Impious, envious man,

In error wrapped and blind, will prove him bent,