High Flight

High Flight was the television sign off during the 1970s for one of the three channels I had when I grew up. I can't remember which one. The poem itself was written by John Gillespie Magee Jr. who died shortly after completing the poem. Back in the days when television channels would complete a broadcast day, they would have a sign off video before the screen would fade to static. This was one of them:

The 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."

High Flight is a part of a series on Old Stuff

[+/-] click here to expand some grey hairs.

High Flight

The Poem

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