"High Flight"

In 1986, after the Challenger tragedy, President Reagan quoted the first and last lines of this poem during the memorial service. I had always heard about the poem, called "High Flight", but didn't know the history of the young man who wrote it.

Since today's Scott Speicher's birthday, and he's a pilot, I thought this to be appropriate. Also, my son Jeff wants to be a Navy pilot. He's known he's wanted to do this since he was a little boy. Though the idea of him flying scares me, who am I to squash a dream?

High Flight
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. 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 untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God


--MorelaterZ--