High Flight Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things you've not dreamed of Wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there, I've chased the shouting winds 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, nor 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 G Magee 1922-1941 |
John Magee was born on June 9th 1922, in Shanghai, China. His mother was British and his father American. After attending Rugby and Harvard, Magee - an American - went to Canada in 1940 aged 18 and joined the RCAF. He qualified as a Pilot Officer and was posted to Britain in July 1941 where he trained and qualified in the Spitfire. On September 3rd 1941, he wrote this poem - he told his mother in a letter that he had started composing it during a training flight at 30,000 feet, so inspired was he by the ecstacy of the flight. On December 11 1941, returning from a convoy patrol, Magee, aged 19½, was killed in a mid-air collision with an RAF trainer as he flew through cloud cover. In 1983, folk singer John Denver used the poem in his song "Flight (The Higher We Fly)". In October 1997 John Denver died when the experimental aircraft he was flying crashed into the sea off the California coast. |
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