And while we're on the subject...
Jul. 21st, 2002 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khaosworksHigh Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
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. Hovering 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 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
It was 1941. Hitler's Nazi juggernaut had smashed its way through Western Europe, France had fallen, and as it had done so a century and a half earlier, Great Britain stood alone against a force which wanted to conquer the Western World. America had not entered the war officially, but tacitly approved when hundreds of young American men, breaking the law, crossed the border to join the Royal Canadian Air Force to fight for freedom.
John G. Magee, Jr. was one of these men. Born in 1922 in Shanghai, China, he was 18 when he entered flight training. By 1940 he had been sent to England and posted to 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF activated at Digby on 30 June 1941. Flying combat air patrols over France and defensive sweeps over England in his Submarine Spitfire, still considered one of the finest combat aircraft ever designed, he fought the German Luftwaffe and rose to the rank of Pilot Officer. The German bombing campaign was at its height then, and while the Battle of Britain and Hitler's dreams of conquering the island were over, the Blitz was still causing severe damage to the country's cities and factories.
On September 3, Magee was flying a high altitude test flight in the new Spitfire V. As he climbed upward, he was hit by inspiration. In a letter to his parents written after he had touched the ground, he said the poem had started at 30,000 feet and was finished soon after he landed. The poem, on the back of the letter, was "High Flight".
On December 11, 1941, just 3 days after the United States entered the war, Magee's Spitfire V collided with an Oxford Trainer over Tangmere, England. Both were flying in clouds, and neither craft saw the other. He was 19 years old. He is buried in the churchyard at Scopwick, Lincolnshire.
The poem represents the joy of flying, the freedom of space, and it holds particular significance for those of us who are interested in the space program. The scientific benefits aside, we reach for space because we want to touch the face of God. As astronaut Dave Scott said once in reference to landing at Hadley Rille on the Moon, there's something to be said for exploring beautiful places - it's good for the human spirit.
"High Flight" has an added poignancy. It is the poem inscribed on the memorial for the crew of the space shuttle Challenger. The cost is high, but the dream is worth it.
(for more details on Magee and poem's relation to the Challenger explosion, see here.)
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
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. Hovering 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 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
It was 1941. Hitler's Nazi juggernaut had smashed its way through Western Europe, France had fallen, and as it had done so a century and a half earlier, Great Britain stood alone against a force which wanted to conquer the Western World. America had not entered the war officially, but tacitly approved when hundreds of young American men, breaking the law, crossed the border to join the Royal Canadian Air Force to fight for freedom.
John G. Magee, Jr. was one of these men. Born in 1922 in Shanghai, China, he was 18 when he entered flight training. By 1940 he had been sent to England and posted to 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF activated at Digby on 30 June 1941. Flying combat air patrols over France and defensive sweeps over England in his Submarine Spitfire, still considered one of the finest combat aircraft ever designed, he fought the German Luftwaffe and rose to the rank of Pilot Officer. The German bombing campaign was at its height then, and while the Battle of Britain and Hitler's dreams of conquering the island were over, the Blitz was still causing severe damage to the country's cities and factories.
On September 3, Magee was flying a high altitude test flight in the new Spitfire V. As he climbed upward, he was hit by inspiration. In a letter to his parents written after he had touched the ground, he said the poem had started at 30,000 feet and was finished soon after he landed. The poem, on the back of the letter, was "High Flight".
On December 11, 1941, just 3 days after the United States entered the war, Magee's Spitfire V collided with an Oxford Trainer over Tangmere, England. Both were flying in clouds, and neither craft saw the other. He was 19 years old. He is buried in the churchyard at Scopwick, Lincolnshire.
The poem represents the joy of flying, the freedom of space, and it holds particular significance for those of us who are interested in the space program. The scientific benefits aside, we reach for space because we want to touch the face of God. As astronaut Dave Scott said once in reference to landing at Hadley Rille on the Moon, there's something to be said for exploring beautiful places - it's good for the human spirit.
"High Flight" has an added poignancy. It is the poem inscribed on the memorial for the crew of the space shuttle Challenger. The cost is high, but the dream is worth it.
(for more details on Magee and poem's relation to the Challenger explosion, see here.)
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no subject
Date: 2002-07-21 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-21 08:31 am (UTC)Thank you, again. I used to write poetry when I was young, and I remember reading this in the paper after Challenger exploded, and crying. To this day this poem brings tears to my eyes.
A.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 03:17 am (UTC)Thanks
... when I lived in DC, one of the local stations used to close for the night with, as I recall, that poem and an eagle flying superimposed over a fluttering US flag ... it used to choke me up just about every time ... my bedroom used to be filled with Apollo and shuttle stuff and the only thing that helps me cope with not becoming an astronaut, is the fact that during my generation, aside from "truck driving" (shuttle stuff) there were no real astronaut jobs in the west ... with the ISS this is at last changing, but too late for me :-(
no subject
Date: 2002-07-28 05:13 pm (UTC)BTW, I've really enjoyed reading your journal.
Cheers!