Sunday 5 April 2009

High Flight

Did my first take-off today. Still shaking.



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 falls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, nor eer 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.


`High Flight,' a sonnet written by John Gillespie Magee, a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

YAY! :D Congratulations! :D How was it? And what are your plans for flying...just hobby flying or are you going to get serious about flying (I'll dream up some CO2 cutting ideas so you won't feel much guilty about flying ;) Actually, I already have ideas but are apparently considered absurd :( Oh well~) Go you!

- Shikhar

Matthew Buchanan said...

Solo? I guess that would have meant a landing too :) Either way, awesome.

Carolyn said...

Thanks Matt :-). Yeah, I've got a good twenty hours of dual left before I go solo.