High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

A Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-900, like the one I'm taking back to the U.S. in about an hour

I'm jumping on a plane to fly back to the U.S. from Canada here in a short bit. While thinking of flying, I found the following poem, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Magee was an aviator and a poet, and his poem, High Flight, has served as an inspiration for aviators, astronauts, and adventurers of all sorts. 

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High 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

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."

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.