Editing High Flight

{{Short description|1941 poem by John Magee Jr.}}
{{about|the poem|the 1957 British film|High Flight (film)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}}
{{Infobox poem
| name              = High Flight
| image             = High Flight - John Gillespie Magee, Jr poem manuscript (LOC markings removed).jpg
| image_size        = 
| caption           = Magee's manuscript of "High Flight", mailed to his parents on 3 September 1941.
| subtitle          = 
| author            = John Gillespie Magee Jr.
| original_title    = 
| original_title_lang = 
| translator        = 
| written           = {{start date and age|1941|08|p=yes|br=yes}}
| first             = 
| illustrator       = 
| cover_artist      = 
| country           = 
| language          = English
| series            = 
| subject           = [[Aviation]]
| genre             = 
| form              = [[Sonnet]]
| meter             = [[Iambic pentameter]]
| rhyme             = 
| publisher         = 
| publication_date  = 
| media_type        = Handwritten
| lines             = 14
| pages             = 
| size_weight       = 
| isbn              = 
| oclc              = 
| preceded_by       = 
| followed_by       = 
| wikisource        = High Flight
}}[[File:High Flight.ogg|thumb|Reading of the poem "High Flight"]]

'''''High Flight''''' is a 1941 [[sonnet]] written by [[war poet]] [[John Gillespie Magee Jr.]] and inspired by his experiences as a [[fighter pilot]] of the [[Royal Canadian Air Force]] in [[World War II]].  Magee began writing the poem on 18 August, while stationed at [[List of Royal Air Force Operational Training Units|No. 53 OTU]] outside [[London]], and mailed a completed manuscript to his family on 3 September, three months before he died in a training accident. Originally published in the ''[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]'', it was widely distributed when Magee became one of the first post-[[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]] American casualties of the war on 11 December,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Armenti|first=Peter|date=2013-09-03|title=John Gillespie Magee's "High Flight" {{!}} From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature at the Library of Congress|url=https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2013/09/john-gillespie-magees-high-flight/|access-date=2022-02-01|website=blogs.loc.gov}}</ref> after which it was exhibited at the American [[Library of Congress]] in 1942.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3330766&view=1up&seq=59&skin=2021|title=Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1942|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|year=1943|access-date={{today}}}}</ref> Owing to its gleeful and ethereal portrayal of aviation, along with its [[Allegory|allegorical interpretation]] of death and transcendence, the poem has been featured prominently in aviation memorials across the world, including that of the [[Space Shuttle Challenger disaster|Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Tearle |first=Oliver |date=2019-12-15 |title=A Short Analysis of John Gillespie Magee's 'High Flight (An Airman's Ecstasy)' |url=https://interestingliterature.com/2019/12/analysis-john-gillespie-magee-high-flight-an-airmans-ecstasy/ |access-date=2022-10-19 |website=Interesting Literature |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Coulson |first=Jamie |date=23 February 2007 |title=Inside Out - Yorkshire and Lincolnshire: Fighter pilot poet |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series11/week7_poem_flying.shtml}}</ref>

{{quote box
| width = 45%
| title = High Flight
| title_bg = BlanchedAlmond
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| bgcolor = Cornsilk
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| source = 
| quote = <poem>: "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."
</poem>
}}

== Creation ==
[[File:Spitfire - Duxford After Hours.jpg|thumb|[[Supermarine Spitfire]] like the one flown by John Magee]]
While piloting a [[Supermarine Spitfire Variants|Spitfire Mk I]], Magee reached {{Convert|33,000|ft|m}} during a training flight over [[Wales]] sometime in August 1941. He was impressed by the speed and agility of the aircraft, and moved by the experience of flying at that altitude. He wrote to his parents that he completed the poem soon after finishing training that day.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cole |first=Roger |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/849197160 |title=High Flight: The Life and Poetry of Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee |date=2014 |isbn=978-0-9571163-6-8 |publisher=Fighting High Publishing |location=[[Hitchin]], Hertfordshire, England |oclc=849197160}}</ref>

The first person to read Magee's poem later that same day in the officers' mess was fellow Pilot Officer Michael Henry Le Bas (later [[Air Vice-Marshal]] M. H. Le Bas, Air Officer Commanding [[No. 1 Group RAF]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/LeBas_MH.htm |title=M H Le Bas |website=Rafweb.org |access-date=27 January 2016}}</ref>), with whom Magee had trained.{{citation needed|date=March 2020}}

Magee enclosed the poem in a letter to his parents, dated 3 September 1941. His father, then curate of [[St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square (Washington, D.C.)|Saint John's Episcopal Church]] in Washington, DC, reprinted it in church publications. The poem became more widely known through the efforts of [[Archibald MacLeish]], then [[Librarian of Congress]], who included it in an exhibition of poems called "Faith and Freedom" at the [[Library of Congress]] in February 1942. The [[manuscript]] copy of the poem remains at the Library of Congress.<ref>{{Cite web|year=1943|title=John Magee papers|url=https://lccn.loc.gov/mm79005423|website=|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref>

=== Inspirational sources ===
Dr. Oliver Tearle writes that Magee could have been inspired by [[Romantic poetry|romantic poems]] that imagined the sensation of flying before humans first successfully flew. The poet described his flight as supernatural, surrealistic and limitless, while it concerns an actual flight in an actual flying machine. Tearle stated that the poem could be seen as a symbol of technological progress, as its author had transcended the confinements of nature in real life: the aeroplane has allowed humankind to defy the limit of being bound to Earth, soar higher than any bird, and "become almost a god himself."<ref name=":0" /> ''High Flight'' could have been further influenced by the effects of [[Hypoxia (medical)|hypoxia]], which Magee described experiencing on one of his flights in his [[logbook]], and perhaps an aviation-specific type of [[spatial disorientation]] that makes pilots feel dissociated with their aircraft's controls.<ref name=":1" />

The last words of ''High Flight'' — "...and touched the face of God" — can also be found in a poem by Cuthbert Hicks published three years earlier in ''Icarus: An Anthology of the Poetry of Flight''. <!-- (Macmillan, London, 1938), compiled by R de la Bere and three flight cadets of the [[Royal Air Force College Cranwell|Royal Air Force College, Cranwell]]. --> The last two lines in Hicks' poem ''The Blind Man Flie''s read:
{{blockquote
| quote = For I have danced the streets of heaven,<br />And touched the face of God.
}}
The anthology includes the poem "New World" by G. W. M. Dunn, which contains the phrase "on laughter-silvered wings". Dunn wrote of "the lifting mind", another phrase that Magee used in ''High Flight'', and refers to "the shouting of the air", in comparison to Magee's line, "chased the shouting wind." Another line by Magee, "The high untrespassed sanctity of space", closely resembles "Across the unpierced sanctity of space", which appears in the anthology in the poem "Dominion over Air" (previously published in the ''RAF College Journal'').

== Uses of the poem ==
[[File:Reagan Space Shuttle Challenger Speech.ogv|thumb|thumbtime=15|right|U.S. President Ronald Reagan addresses the nation after the ''Challenger'' disaster (28 January 1986)]]

[[File:Shuttle Challenger - rear - Arlington National Cemetery - 2011.JPG|thumb|"High Flight" is inscribed in full on the back of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' Memorial at [[Arlington National Cemetery]].]]

During April and May 1942, many Hollywood stars including [[Laurel and Hardy]], [[Groucho Marx]], [[Cary Grant]], [[Bing Crosby]], and [[Bob Hope]] joined the [[Hollywood Victory Caravan]] as it toured the United States on a mission to raise war bonds.  Actress [[Merle Oberon]] recited ''High Flight'' as part of this show.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://collections.oscars.org/onesearch/ |title=Search Library Databases &#124; Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences |publisher=Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |access-date=27 January 2016}}</ref> During the performance on 30 April 1942, at the Loew's Capitol Theatre in Washington, D.C., and before her recitation of ''High Flight'', Oberon acknowledged the attendance of Magee's father, [[John Magee (missionary)|John Magee]], and brother Christopher Magee.

[[Orson Welles]] read the poem on an episode of ''The Radio Reader's Digest'' (11 October 1942),<ref name="Bret Wood">{{cite book |last=Wood |first=Bret |author-link=Bret Wood |title=Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Connecticut |date=1990 |page=121 |isbn=0-313-26538-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=11 October 1942 |title=Wendy Barrie and Orson Welles on Radio Reader's Digest |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] }}</ref> ''[[Command Performance (radio series)|Command Performance]]'' (21 December 1943),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/OrsonWellesWartimeBroadcasts |title=Archived copy |access-date=15 March 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130210224411/http://archive.org/details/OrsonWellesWartimeBroadcasts |archive-date=10 February 2013 }}</ref> and ''[[The Orson Welles Almanac]]'' (31 May 1944).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/show/2095 |title=The Orson Welles Almanac |date=31 May 1944 |website=Orson Welles on the Air, 1938–1946 |publisher=Indiana University Bloomington |access-date=19 July 2018 }}</ref>

''High Flight'' has been a favourite poem amongst both aviators and [[astronauts]]. It is the official poem of the [[Royal Canadian Air Force]] and the [[Royal Air Force]]. The poem has to be recited from memory by fourth-class cadets at the [[United States Air Force Academy]], where it can be seen on display in the Cadet Field House.<ref>[http://www.usafa.edu/superintendent/pa/highflight.htm] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090406013849/http://www.usafa.edu/superintendent/pa/highflight.htm|date=6 April 2009}}</ref> At the [[United States Air Force Academy Cemetery]], the grave marker of Brigadier General [[Robin Olds]] is inscribed with a variant of a line from the poem: "dancing the skies on laughter silvered wings".

The poem is often read at funerals of aviators;<ref name=":1" /> portions of the poem appear on many of the headstones in the [[Arlington National Cemetery]], and it is inscribed in full on the back of the [[Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial|Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' Memorial]]. It is displayed on panels at the [[Canadian War Museum]] in Ottawa, the [[National Air Force Museum of Canada]], in [[Trenton, Ontario]]. It is the subject of a permanent display at the [[National Museum of the United States Air Force]], in [[Dayton, Ohio]].<ref>[http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1349] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090528145603/http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1349|date=28 May 2009}}</ref>

Brigadier General [[Robert Lee Scott Jr.]] included the poem in his 1943 book ''God is My Co-Pilot''.

Astronaut [[Michael Collins (astronaut)|Michael Collins]] brought an index card with the poem typed on it on his [[Gemini 10]] flight and included the poem in his 1974 autobiography ''[[Carrying the Fire]]''. Former NASA Flight Director [[Gene Kranz]] quoted the first line of the poem in his book ''Failure Is Not An Option''. U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]] used part of "High Flight" in [[Ronald Reagan#Second term|a speech]] written by [[Peggy Noonan]] on the night after the [[Space Shuttle Challenger disaster|''Challenger'' disaster]] on 28 January 1986.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Reagan |first1=Ronald |first2=Peggy |last2=Noonan |title=Address to the nation on the Challenger disaster |publisher=Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation |date=28 January 1986 |url=http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/challenger.asp |access-date=3 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071227225412/http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/challenger.asp |archive-date=27 December 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

At [[RAF Scampton]] in Lincolnshire, a memorial to [[Red Arrows]] pilots, Flight Lieutenants Jon Egging, killed on 20 August 2011, and [[Death of Sean Cunningham (pilot)|Sean Cunningham]], killed on 8 November 2011, bears an interpretation of the poem on a brass plaque atop a wooden plinth in front of a [[gate guardian]] aircraft outside the RAF Aerobatics Team hangar. The plaque reads "...they have slipped the surly bonds of Earth / Put out their hands and touched the face of God... / In memory of / Flt Lt Jon Egging – 20th August 2011 / Flt Lt Sean Cunningham – 8th November 2011".<ref>{{cite web|title=75 Years of High Flight Beloved aviator poem's 75th anniversary celebrated|url=https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive/75-years-of-high-flight-beloved-aviator-poems-75th-anniversary-celebrated-19082016|website=RAF|access-date=13 September 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=2028 Squadron Realise A Dream with the Red Arrows|url=http://www.aircadets-wbw.org/news_2028_red_arrows14.htm|website=Warwickshire & Birmingham Wing Air Training Corps|access-date=13 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170913183918/http://www.aircadets-wbw.org/news_2028_red_arrows14.htm|archive-date=13 September 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In her 1 September 2018, eulogy for her father, [[John McCain]], [[Meghan McCain]] quoted the poem at the end of her tribute. "I know that on the afternoon of August 25th in front of Oak Creek in Cornville, Arizona, surrounded by the family he loved so much, an old man shook off the scars of battle one last time and arose a new man to pilot one last flight up and up and up, busting clouds left and right, straight on through to the kingdom of heaven. And he slipped the earthly bonds, put out his hand, and touched the face of God"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/09/01/meghan-mccain-full-text-eulogy-john-mccain-trancript/1174328002/|title=Meghan McCain eulogy of John McCain: Celebrating her dad's love and influence while criticizing Trump|access-date=3 December 2018}}</ref>

=== Musical adaptations ===
[[Miklós Rózsa]] composed the earliest known setting of ''High Flight'', for [[tenor]] voice, in 1942. It was later published as one of his ''Five Songs'' in 1974. Canadian composer and Royal Canadian Air Force veteran Robert J. B. Fleming wrote a through-composed musical setting of the poem for the Divine Services Book of the Canadian Armed Forces published in 1950. The composer [[Bill Pursell]] wrote his own arrangement with narration for the [[United States Air Force]] Band, which was broadcast on their radio show in the late 1940s. Several songs and symphonic compositions have been based on Magee's text, including [[Bob Chilcott]]'s 2008 setting, premiered on 1 May 2008 by the [[King's Singers]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/radio/wk19/tue.shtml |title=Press Office – Network Radio Programme Information Week 19 Tuesday 6 May 2008 |publisher=[[BBC]] |access-date=27 January 2016}}</ref>[[File:John Gillespie Magee Memorial.JPG|thumb|left|A plaque at St. Catharines/Niagara District Airport commemorates J G. Magee Jr.]]The poem has been set to music by several composers, including by [[John Denver]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjzcdvF3gDc | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150526112423/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjzcdvF3gDc| archive-date=2015-05-26 | url-status=dead|title=John Denver sings High Flight |via=YouTube |date=1 August 2012 |access-date=27 January 2016}}</ref> and Lee Holdridge as performed on the Bob Hope television show and is included in his 1983 album [[It's About Time (John Denver album)|''It's About Time'']] and by [[Christopher Marshall (composer)|Christopher Marshall]], whose composition was commissioned for and premiered by The Orlando Chorale with saxophonist George Weremchuk ([[Orlando, Florida]]) in March 2009, under the direction of Gregory Ruffer. The first performance of a setting of words, known as "Even Such Is Time", from [[Gabriel Faure|Fauré]]’s [[Requiem (Fauré)|Requiem]], plus additional non-liturgical texts that included "High Flight", was performed by the Nantwich Choral Society, conducted by John Naylor, on Saturday 26 March 2011, in St Mary's Church, [[Nantwich]], Cheshire. The music was written by Andrew Mildinhall, the former organist at the church, who accompanied the performance with the Northern Concordia Orchestra.

Singer [[Al Jarreau]] paid brief homage to "High Flight" by using the closing lines in the bridge of his 1983 song "[[Mornin']]".

The American composer [[James Curnow]] was commissioned by the Graduates Association of Tenri High School Band in [[Nara, Japan]] to write a piece for [[concert band]] in honour of the 50th anniversary of its association.  The piece is entitled ''Where Never Lark or Eagle Flew'' with the subtitle "Based on a poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr."{{citation needed|date=February 2012}} In 2012, the Australian composer Daniel Walker was commissioned by [[North Sydney Boys High School]] to compose a piece for the school's centenary celebrations. This composition, 'Through Footless Halls of Air', which was written for choir and symphonic winds, features the poem in the lyrics.

British composer [[Jonathan Dove]] included the poem in his 2009 oratorio ''There Was a Child'', written as a memoriam to Robert Van Allen, who also died at the age of nineteen.  It has also been set by British composer Nicholas Scott Burt as a short motet and dedicated to the choir of Rugby Parish Church.

In 2011, [[Emmylou Harris]] wrote and recorded a song, "Darlin' Kate", dedicated to her late friend, folk singer-songwriter [[Kate McGarrigle]], which included the lines, " As you slip the surly bonds of earth and sail away..."

In 2014, Canadian composer [[Vince Gassi]] composed a piece for concert band entitled ''Chase The Shouting Wind''.

In 2015, the Hardcore DJ Nosferatu used the poem in his track "sanctity of space".

===Depictions in mass media===
Many U.S. television viewers were introduced to "High Flight" when several TV stations ended (and sometimes also began) their programming day with various short films containing it.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uGP74qRzSc| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220181030/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uGP74qRzSc| archive-date=2016-12-20 | url-status=dead|title=High Flight TV Station Sign-off – 1972|last=TheShootingstar31|date=12 January 2013|access-date=3 December 2018|via=YouTube}}</ref> The sign-off film occasionally seen on [[KPTV]] in [[Portland, Oregon]] and [[KCRA]] in [[Sacramento, California]] featured the spoken poem played to [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] flying footage.<ref>{{YouTube|sJeVePBjm78|An example of a "High Flight"/TV sign-off film}}</ref> Other examples of the use of the poem in television programs, films include:
* The popular comic strip ''[[Bloom County]]'', which used the poem on 8 July 1984, to illuminate the Earth-bound frustrations of Opus, a flightless waterfowl.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1984/07/08/ |title=Bloom County Comic Strip, July 8, 1984 on |website=Gocomics.com |access-date=27 January 2016}}</ref>
* Featured in an episode of NBC's ''The Blacklist'' season 3 episode 6 "Sir Crispin Crandall" originally aired 5 November 2015
* Featured in an episode of AMC's ''[[Mad Men]]'' season 2 episode 6 "Maidenform" originally aired 31 August 2008, where the poem is read on television during a scene featuring [[Pete Campbell]].
* An episode of the UK [[archaeology]] documentary series ''[[Time Team]]'' that featured the [[excavation (archaeology)|excavation]] of a crashed Spitfire in France, when the poem was read during the end credits.
* The penultimate episode "[[Daybreak (Battlestar Galactica)|Daybreak]]" of ''[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'', where the poem is paraphrased.
* The first and last lines quoted by President [[Ronald Reagan]] after the [[Space Shuttle Challenger disaster|Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster]] in January 1986.<ref name="reagan.utexas.edu">{{cite web |url=http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/12886b.htm |title=Address to the Nation on the Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger |website=Reagan.utexas.edu |date=28 January 1986 |access-date=27 January 2016 |archive-date=19 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219124528/http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/12886b.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>
** The 1990 made-for-television film, ''[[Challenger (1990 film)|Challenger]]'', that documented the events leading up to the ''Challenger'' disaster concludes with the seven doomed astronauts reciting the poem in their thoughts as the shuttle is about to launch.
* The 1993 [[Mel Gibson]] movie ''[[The Man Without a Face]]'', where the poem is recited by the character Chuck Norstadt, played by [[Nick Stahl]].
* The 1993 [[Russell Crowe]] movie [[Russell Crowe#Filmography|''For the Moment'']], where the poem is recited by Crowe's character, Lachlan Curry.
* The 1989 [[science fiction film|science fiction]] [[adventure film|adventure]] film ''[[Slipstream (1989 film)|Slipstream]]'', which made frequent use of the poem, most notably by [[Mark Hamill]] and [[Bob Peck]].
* The film ''[[Snow Walker]]'', in which [[James Cromwell]] recites the poem.
* Pilot and composer [[Max Conrad]]'s second LP of ''Flight Inspired Music'', which features the poem on the cover.
* [[Scott O'Grady]]'s book ''Return With Honor'', which has a full transcript of the poem.
* ''One Small Step'', a children's novel by [[Philip Kerr]], reprints the poem in full before the Author's Note.
*A reporter in the film ''[[First Man (film)|First Man]]'' is heard quoting the poem ('slipped the surly bonds of Earth') while describing the [[Gemini 8]] mission that [[Neil Armstrong]] took part in. 
* [[Jed Bartlet|President Bartlet]] recites the final portion of the poem ("...with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God") in "The Crackpots and These Women", the fifth episode from [[The West Wing season 1|Season 1]] of ''[[The West Wing]]''. 
* A French translation of "High Flight" is told by Bernard Chabert in an episode of ''Pégase'', a French TV documentary dedicated to the Spitfire.
* English independent filmmakers James Walker and John Wallace produced the documentary film ''High Flight'' in 2016, which takes its name from the poem, and documents Magee's story, the origin of the poem and the poem's place in the legacy of World War Two iconography, as well as the cultural impact of the era upon the "baby boomer" generation. The film is due for release and distribution in late 2016.
* In 2019, it was referenced during a speech of the opening episode of the sixth season of the TV series ''[[Madam Secretary (TV series)|Madam Secretary]]''.
* In 2022, the third episode of the [[List of Manifest episodes#Season 4 (2022–23)|fourth season]] of the Netflix series ''[[Manifest (TV series)|Manifest]]'' was titled "High Flight", within which the phrase "long, delirious, burning blue" played a pivotal role.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Aviation poetry]]