High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
It makes me smile to know that poetry can be made from the strangest subjects!
Quentin Correll
75, retired
Sunnyvale
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 have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
— Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
(1922–41)
Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Blog 