High Flight

I found this poem on a blog that I read stalkingly (I don't know the author personally and have never posted. I'm SO ashamed...)

The young man who wrote this was born in China to missionary parents and later joined the Royal Air Force during WWII. He wrote "High Flight" and sent it to his parents. A few months later, he died when his airplane collided with another British plane over England. He was 19 years old.

President Reagan quoted phrases from this poem when he addressed the nation after the Challenger tragedy (I was one of those kids sitting in my elementary school assembly to watch the launch... I still remember the horrified looks on my teachers' faces--horror not only at what had happened, but also that they now had to explain it to 60 confused 7 year olds).

"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 Gillespie Magee, Jr.