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High Flight
High Flight, a poem by John Gillespie Mcgee, Jr. (1922 - 1941).
An American/British fighter pilot, he flew with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II.
He went to Britain, flew in a Spitfire squadron, and was killed at age 19 on December 11, 1941
during a training flight from the airfield near Scopwick, Lincolnshire.
The poem was written on the back of a letter to his parents which stated,
"I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day.
It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed."
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HIGH FLIGHT
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I have 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 windswept 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.
By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
September 3, 1941
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