here's another favorite poem. i fell in love with this since i first read its whimsical and touching lines while i was still in high school. actually, i incorporated this poem into one of our group projects. it has always remained as a personal favorite, even as i grew older and my taste changed in several aspects…
"High Flight" was written by Pilot Officer John Gillespie MacGee (RCAF), a WWII pilot who was only 19 years old when he died (just 3 months after he wrote 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 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.