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From: mitchell@kvue.UUCP (Roger Mitchell)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: Challenger
Message-ID: <246@kvue.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Feb-86 20:57:47 EST
Article-I.D.: kvue.246
Posted: Tue Feb  4 20:57:47 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Feb-86 09:37:31 EST
References: <506@mot.UUCP>
Reply-To: mitchell@kvue.UUCP (Roger Mitchell)
Distribution: net
Organization: KVUE-TV, Austin, Tx.
Lines: 30

>Would someone please post to this newsgroup the complete words
>to the poem "High Flight".

The complete poem, as far as I can remember it (we used to play it as the
"sign-off" announcement on our station) is as follows:

	"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, untresspassed sanctity of space,
	 Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

The poem was written by John Magee, Jr, a 19-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force
volunteer who was killed in action during the opening weeks of WWII.

It is, I believe, a most fitting tribute to those men and women who gave their
lives in the pursuit of space.

     Roger Mitchell
     KVUE-TV - Austin, TX