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've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
-John Magee, Jr.
Magee was already a talented poet who had turned down a scholarship to Yale to volunteer with the RCAF. He was inspired to write the poem after soaring up to 33,000 feet in a Spitfire.
Magee survived a number of convoy patrols over France, including one in which the other three planes in his Section were shot down but he was killed in a training accident on Dec. 11, 1941, a few months after writing High Flight. He was nineteen years old.