In December 1941, Pilot Officer John G. Magee, a 19-year-old American serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force in England, was killed when his spitfire collided with another air-plane inside a cloud. Several months before his death, he composed this immortal sonnet "HIGH FLIGHT" a copy of which he fortunately mailed to his parents in the U.S.A.
HIGH FLIGHT
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wing;
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
RCAF Pilot Officer John G. Magee
