Emphasis Preaching Journal
Ecstasy and Real Life
Commentary
Shortly before he died in a training accident with the Royal Canadian Air Force in December of 1941, 19-year-old John Magee penned this stirring ode to flight:
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
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
