High Flight

Highlands Ranch, CO

Most of us have heard or read the poem High Flight composed in August 1941 by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., an American serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He died in a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire in December 1941.

I have read it many times but recently the words struck a new chord and called to mind new pictures. Enjoy.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've 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.
Hovering 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 wind-swept 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."

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth ...

... and touched the face of God