A thousand ardent oilers swung the long spout 'twixt their nods,
And tried to glimpse a meaning in the challenge of the gods. And then one night there landed on a Mineola swale
A plane that looked like pewter, with a carrier of mail. Its wings were tinged like tea-box skins, each truss of shadow gray,
Its cabin but an alcove slung beneath a metal ray. The Spirit of St. Louis was inscribed upon the lee;
It came from out a province that had never seen the sea.

Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928) - The Wings of Lead