Travels With Maggie
I am in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, where I have an extremely busy day ahead of me in preparation for getting on the road tomorrow. So I’m simply going to share my very favorite poem in the whole universe with you. Have a great day!
My earth-bound legs can only dream of soaring free in a sky like this that one day overlooked Canyonlands National Park. -- Photo by Pat Bean
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 have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee Jr.
This poem almost always gives me goosebumps, Pat, and it did again today. Thanks! Sam
This is my absolutely favorite poem of all time. When I was a kid, one of the local TV stations would sign off at 1 am with a video of planes in the sky narrated with this poem. I would stay up just to see as many nights as I could get away with in the summer. Thanks for the memories!
The words and the way they are put together mesmerize me. Glad you like it, too.
Deborah Lee and I must have been watching the same TV station. I love the poem, too.
Such a wonderful poem! Thank you for sharing it. 🙂