High Flight

Date: 14th Nov 2017 @ 7:20pm

Thank you to Chris Lightfoot, who came into a Literacy lesson with Class Four this morning to share a favourite poem of his - a particularly poignant one at this time of year.

After talking about the poem and gathering their different impressions of it, Chris filled in some details of the life of the poet/pilot, which also fascinated the class.  They then began to write their own poems, thinking of what it was like for pilot to be flying high in the sky.  Some were based on world war pilots, others were just about what flying must be like.  We shall be sharing some of their writing when it is finished by publishing it on the 'Our writing' page under the Curriculum tab.

In the meantime, here is the poem they were studying, written by a Canadian pilot, John Gillespie Magee:

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 ever 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.