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.

This poem — “High Flight” — is the enduring legacy of John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He wrote it in 1941, just months before he was killed at age 19. It’s the official poem of the Canadian Forces Air Command and Royal Air Force and appears on many museums, memorials, and headstones.

It was also used in a series of short films, also called “High Flight”. In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, many TV stations played the films as their sign-off. Each was a couple minutes, and showed flight footage as the narrator intoned the poem in deep voice.

Along with other Navy and Air Force footage, these films will be the backdrop for our own show — as always, an improvised soundtrack, free to the public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee_Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL-KCFbIpA
https://www.archive.org/details/gov.dod.dimoc.25563