It's been 100 years since the Wright Brothers flew the first powered airplane-
I first heard this years ago....when the local TV channels would go off the air for the night-LOL,
all you MTV/ESPN/VH1 generation kids will never know the beauty of a blank TV screen late at night- they would play a tape of an airplane and pictures of clouds while a narrator read this poem.
"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've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Magee was an American pilot who flew with the Royal Air Force during WWII.
He wrote this during a record setting flight he made.
He was killed in a collision with another aircraft on Dec 11 1941 over England.
He was only 19 years old.
