"High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
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: hovring there,
Ive chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, the long, delirious burning blue
Ive topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew --
And, while the silent lifting mind Ive trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
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: hovring there,
Ive chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, the long, delirious burning blue
Ive topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew --
And, while the silent lifting mind Ive trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.