High Flight – John Magee

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (June 1922-December 1941), born to missionaries in China, served in the Royal Canadian Air Force  in WWII. He died in a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire in 1941.

 

High Flight

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. 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 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.

– John Magee

 

The post High Flight – John Magee appeared first on Enemy in the Mirror.