Poem of yesterday

It's not yet May and already 8 people I know have died this year. Here's a wonderful poem from a memorial service yesterday:

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. Hovering 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've trod 

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee (1922-41)