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,