Pilot Officer Magee composed "High Flight" and sent a copy to his parents on the back of a letter . He had flown up to 33,000 feet in a Spitfire Mk 1, his seventh flight. As he orbited and climbed upward he was struck with the inspiration of a poem, "To touch the face of God." He completed it later that day after landing. Several months later, on Dec. 11, 1941, his Spitfire collided with another plane over England, and Magee, only 19 years of age, crashed to his death.
HIGH FLIGHT
John Gillespie Magee, Jr
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.
