"High Flight"

Composed by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. while flying 30,000 feet over England. Soon after, in 1941, he was killed at age 19 while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

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, 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.

"Sunk Out"

"Oh, I have slipped the surely bonds of Earth
And worked my butt off in weak and broken lift
Downward I've sunk, and joined the grumbling crowd
Of flushing pilots and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of, scratched close to the ridge
Down in the savage rotor; flushing there,
I've cursed the screaming sink alarm, and flung
My eager wing into vanishing shreds of lift.

"Down, down, the short, frustrating, sled ride
I sank like a sewer lid with ill grace
Where never mole, or even earthworm crawled.
And while with complaints I've filled
My broadcasts back to launch, turned final,
rounded out, flared, and pounded into the sod!"

Paul Gazis, with apologies to John Gillespie Magee, Jr.