When you are my age you always read the obituaries. This beautiful poem is for me "origin unknown" anyone? -----A kind reader filled me in. The part of the poem I quote was used for the obituary.
"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...
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."
This foregoing is partial selection of the poem, High Flight, By John Magee, a 19 year old American who flew in 1941 for the Royal Canadian Airforce and was killed three months into the war. He tested the Spitfire at 30,000 feet as a test pilot. The poem, if you care to read it in the whole sometime, reveals the power of the poet's word revealing the relationship of the inner man alone in his outer garment of untrespassed sanctity at 30,000 feet.
"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...
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."
This foregoing is partial selection of the poem, High Flight, By John Magee, a 19 year old American who flew in 1941 for the Royal Canadian Airforce and was killed three months into the war. He tested the Spitfire at 30,000 feet as a test pilot. The poem, if you care to read it in the whole sometime, reveals the power of the poet's word revealing the relationship of the inner man alone in his outer garment of untrespassed sanctity at 30,000 feet.
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