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 windswept heights with easy grace/ Where never lark, or even eagle flew -/ And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod/ The high untresspassed sanctity of space,/ Put out my hand and touched the face of God. -- Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee No 412 squadron, RCAF Killed 11 December 1941. Happy landings, UPT 14-05.