What is poetry? What does it mean? Why do we have it? I know it’s not exactly the most exciting topic you can think of. But give me ten minutes and I’ll change your mind. Because in my opinion, english class doesn’t do it justice. I want to tell you a story about the most beautifully tragic poem ever written. Believe me, things are about to get interesting.
I myself, have never been too interested in poetry, but I cannot deny the mastery of rhythm and language it contains. When I encountered this poem I saw clearly, the beauty of the craft for the first time a few years ago. It was a commonplace morning among the weeks of exams I endured in my high school years when I discovered the poem I would never forget. It lay bare across the stiff, off-white pages of an English exam booklet, and even while shrouded in multiple-choice questions and analysis, the verses stood tall on the paper. They stuck out to me, and I didn’t know exactly why.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, A
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; B
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth A
Of sun-split clouds, –and done a hundred things B
You have not dreamed of –Wheeled and soared and swung C
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there D
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung C
My eager craft through footless halls of air… D
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue E
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace F
Where never lark or even eagle flew — E
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod G
The high untrespassed sanctity of space, F
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. G
-John Gillespie Magee Jr.
I’ve found that with most poems, I can appreciate their words, but the meaning is often obscured by the complexity of the language. It often takes multiple reads to even understand what themes lay underneath the vivid imagery. But this poem was different. It took one line to sweep me off my feet. In two I was gliding through the sun-soaked skies, the tangible words of the verse only clinging by a thread to my subconscious as a world formed around me. A world of ecstasy. The poem did not set out to have a political meaning or a deeply rooted theme. It simply described a feeling.
To many pilots who have read this poem, they describe it as giving “unique and felicitous expression to the emotions aroused by the act of piloting an aircraft”. In other words, they flew. For those of us who are still tethered relentlessly to the ground by the force of gravity, this is the closest thing to flight that we can experience. And I think I know why. First of all, the poem itself is intricately constructed.
It is a sonnet and it makes clear use of iambic pentameter. This is a certain rhythm that is created in set amounts of stressed and unstressed syllables. It almost gives the impression of a horse galloping and was famously used by Shakespeare in almost all of his work.
Once the rhythm is established, the poem further enforces it with consonance and alliteration. Notice how many words start with s, and how many end with d. Many similar sounding words are coupled together.
However, things begin to change as the poem progresses. As the tone switches, so does the rhyming scheme. It begins with ABAB CDCD, but it ends with EFE, GFG. This pattern is unique to this poem but can be closely compared to a Petrarchan sonnet, Which is known for switching tone in the last segments.
The entire poem swings like a pendulum, building momentum as it falls, using words like, slipped, climbed, tumbling, soared, swung, shouting, flung. As the pendulum arches upwards again it hesitates at the top, using words like, long, topped, trod, touched. Here the pendulum is caught, right as the poem ends. It is a masterful use of the English language.
But the story doesn’t end there. The real beauty of the poem is hidden deep in its history and founded firmly in its creation. The story is woven with irony and tragedy by the thread of fate and blood. And it all begins with an 18-year-old Anglo-American boy named John.
John Gillespie Magee Jr passed his Wings test in June 1941 and was accepted into the Royal Canadian air force at the age of 18 years old. His officer commended him as “A very good pilot prospect”, but he also claimed that Magee, “lacks discipline” and was “somewhat overconfident”
Magee’s friends remember liking him greatly. They considered him a man that could do anything. He laughed a lot and made others laugh too. He was fearless, ambitious and determined. He had a story to tell, and the words to do it.
At this time of his life, he was already an accomplished poet, having won Rugby school’s Poetry prize in 1938 for his poem about the funeral of Rupert Brooke. The very man who had won the same prize 34 years prior. Magee set out to emulate Brooke’s style as he wrote about him and his burial as a war veteran poet on the Greek island of Skyros in 1915.
And even as he served in the Air Force, Magee continued writing poetry. Often sending them attached to letters he sent to his parents.
Near the end of 1941, Magee’s parents received a letter. “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed”. The back of the letter contained verses that would be renowned all over the world for decades to come, but not right away. The poem was High Flight.
It is not hard to envision MaGee as he sailed the skies in his Spitfire, inspired by the thrill and wonder of the clouds rushing past. To him I imagine the plane melted away from under his boots, and he could almost feel the wind on his face as he drifted gracefully across red horizons.
But little of this is repeated when people talk about John Gillespie Magee Jr. For most who become famous after their years, the subject of conversation is their death.
Not 3 months after he had written the poem, John Gillespie Magee Jr. died tragically in a training accident. His Spitfire collided with an Oxford trainer 400 feet above the ground. A farmer testified watching the Spitfire pilot struggle to open the canopy. When he finally escaped he stood up and jumped from the plane. But it was too late. He was too close to the ground for his parachute to open.
He died instantly.
In a letter to the Royal Canadian Air Force, John’s parents wrote, “We gave our consent and blessing to John as he left us to enter the RCAF. We felt as deeply as he did and we were proud of his determination and spirit. We knew that such news as did come might come. When his sonnet (poem) reached us we felt then that it had a message for American youth but did not know how to get it before them. Now his death had emblazoned it across the entire country. We are thinking that this may have been a greater contribution than anything he may have done in the way of fighting. We will be forever proud of him.”
The final line of the poem had always stuck out to me. It always seemed, almost, out of place.
But In some tragic twist of fate, John’s poem predicted his own death. At first, the final line was symbolic of a peace that he could find in the clouds. But now, it seemed a lot more literal. Far more intentional.
It is ironic in a tragic and beautiful sort of way. And now those words are inscribed on his tombstone. As well as across history. His death, as his parents said, emblazoned the words across the entire country. Astronaut Jim Irwin brought it with him to the moon. And unsurprisingly the poem was referred to widely during the disasters of the Columbia and Challenger.
It was used to sign off when TV stations would shut off for the night in the ’60s and ’70s. American musician, John Denver made the poem into a song, he was fascinated with space and was even a pilot himself. He too died tragically in the test flight of an experimental aircraft at the age of 53. The title was used for a 1957 British cold war Drama filmed in cooperation with the Royal Air force. A book was written about him under the same name.
And it showed up in my English exam.
What is it about this poem that makes it so memorable and beautiful? Truly it is not the words or the context under which they were written. It is not what they say or what they represent. It is simply the imagery and the feeling they convey. This is the heart of poetry, turning complex experiences and emotions into words that can be repeated. It is a way for emotions to become immortal. And this poem is a perfect representation of that. Magee felt the ecstasy of flight as he piloted his aircraft. Flight to him was a feeling like no other. The freedom it provided quite literally swept him off his feet. It was pure, raw, unfiltered. Like a surge of electricity, it flowed through him. He never felt more alive. As he flew that fateful day in 1941 it felt the same as if he had flown for the first time. Then he did the impossible. He put the feeling into words.
Testing out the comments. Pretty neat eh?