Quote:
Originally posted by lifesaver
The poem is called "High Flight" it was written by Officer Gillespie Magee, No 412 squadron, RCAF, Killed 11 December 1941.
It was read that the funerals of both my grandfather and dad, who were both pilots. Its a deeply personal poem to me and one of my favorites. I get emotional each time I read it.
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 windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high unsurpassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
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OMG, lifesaver. That was also the poem for my father, a "flying doctor" whose plane crashed as he took off on his way to work. I couldn't hear it for years without dissolving in tears.
He was physician to many of the earliest astronauts--some of whom came to our house and several of whom died on the job. When they were killed, he reminded us that they died doing what they loved...when he died, at least I knew that he too had been doing what he loved.