High Flight – by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

There are a few people I know who regularly fly in and out of the Georgetown County Airport.  Flight is truly a magical thing, and I am one of the few who really enjoys being a passenger aboard the commercial airlines.  The following captures the magic of being a pilot so well:

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 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.

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