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From: "Jean Rice" <>
Subject: [Irish-American] John Gillespie MAGEE Jr. (1922-1941) -- "High Flight"
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 12:31:45 -0700


BIO: John Gillespie MAGEE Jr. (1922-1941) was born 02 June 1922 in Shanghai to American missionaries John Gillespie Magee (Assistant Rector, St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington DC) and Emmeline Backhouse. The following lines were penned three months before their son's death on 11 Dec 1941, when his Spitfire V crashed after a mid-air collision in the clouds with a trainer plane from RAF Cranwell. He was one of the first casualties of the war. The lines of his poem beautifully capture John's love of flying.

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 nor ever 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.

(Magee's poem was very widely printed during and after the war).



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