Per Ardua Ad Astra
p. 14 · Read in the full issue
Francis Thompson lives again in the poignantly-beautiful cadences of a fragment of verse that was scribbled in pencil on the back of an envelope addressed to his parents in Scotland, by a 19-year-old RAF pilot in Canada, J. Gillespie Magee, shortly before he was killed. It has been hailed as a work of genius. It may have been pub lished earlier in Australia, but we have not previously seen it—and it is too pre cious to be lost.
High Flight
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings; Sunward Vve 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. Hovering there, Vve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue, Vve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never lark nor even eagle flew — And, while with silent lifting mind Vve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out niy hand and touched the face of God.