On this Memorial Day Weekend, to Honor all of those brave souls who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our Country, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you one of my favorite Sonnets.
It came to my attention back in 1984 following the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster when President Ronald Reagan read it at a memorial service. It is entitled "High Flight"
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 sunsplit 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 winds 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.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
In December 1941, Pilot Officer Magee, a nineteen-year-old Amercian serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force in England, was killed when his Spitfire collided with another airplane inside a cloud. Discovered among his personal effects was this sonnet, written on the back of a letter at the time he was in flying school at Farnborough, England.
Comments(13)