High Flight

 Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the sky 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 windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.

  And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

                        John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Young American serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a Spitfire pilot, killed at the age of 19 in a mid-air collision early on during the Battle of Britain before the US entered the war.