The poem I always find myself thinking on Remembrance Day is High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee Jr. Magee trained as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941 and was transferred to a Spitfire operational training unit in Llandow, South Wales later that year. He wrote the poem in September, 1941 and sent it home to his parents. Magee died in a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire while on active service on 11th December 1941.
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 untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee Jr.
(1922-1941)
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