High Flight

Thanks to Radio 3's Words and Music – a wonderful programme that does exactly what its title suggests – I discovered this beautiful poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr – 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.

You can hear it here, read by Will Howard as part of a Words and Music episode exploring mankind's yearning to fly. Magee, an American pilot and poet, was killed at the age of 19, in 1941.