I recently came across this poem that I had read many years ago. It is so touching and beautiful that I wanted to share it with you. It was written by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. and was composed in 1941 while he was a pilot in England during World War II. Soon after writing it, at the age of 19, he was killed while serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
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, the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights
with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while the silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face
of God.
