17/1001 - High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

17/1001 Bradburian Nights:

No short story today. Mondays are our co-op days, and I am busy during teaching and helping with treasurer stuff, and then sending emails and checking homework in the evening. Now that we are back in our normal schedule, reading time is limited. 

Essay: I began "A letter of Advice to a Young Poet" by Jonathan Swift but was too tired to continue. It seemed to be equal parts actual advice and biting sarcasm. Swift is hilarious but uncomfortable to read, the kind of author who is able to make excellent points or serious subjects while simultaneously making fun of anyone who takes him too seriously. I plan to finish the letter later in the week.

Poem:

High Flight

by 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 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.

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Thinking about my grandparents today, and this poem always made me think of my grandpa who was an small aircraft mechanic and general airplane enthusiast.

Magee was an American WW2 pilot for the Royal Canadian airforce. He was killed in an accidental mid-air collision in 1941.