High Flight

The sonnet “High Flight” details both the actual experience of taking a high- altitude flight in a fighter plane in 1941 and serves to illuminate how the experience creates the emotion of awe which seems to transcend earthly boundaries to become divine. While it is generally thought that the poem was inspired by John Gillespie Magee Jr.’s own high-altitude training, the speaker is not purely autobiographical. The rendering of the pilot’s experience also conveys a sense of appreciation for any exceptional activity.

The poem begins during flight as the pilot lets out an ecstatic “Oh!” (Line 1) before remarking that they have left the “surly bonds of Earth” (Line 1) behind. These trappings imply that the material world of the ground is a less-navigable place than the air, which is positioned as a place of freedom and positivity. The pilot’s flight allows them to escape any restrictions, bringing them a sense of joyous buoyancy. Thus, the plane is described as having “laughter-silvered wings” (Line 2, emphasis added) an image that is then echoed in the “tumbling mirth / of sun-split clouds” (Lines 3-4, emphasis added). These images add to a euphoric sense of happiness, first hinted at by the exclamation in the opening line as the pilot’s excitement bubbles over.

The choreography of the plane is also expressed in positive terms, as it “dance[s]” (Line 2) and “climb[s]” (Line 3) upward. The plane cuts its path through the sky, going “up, up the long delirious, burning blue” (Line 9). Physically, the pilot navigates the plane higher and higher while emotionally they appear to playfully scamper in the “footless halls of air” (Line 8) by “wheel[ing] and soar[ing] and swing[ing]” (Line 5). This playfulness even extends to the pilot’s gentle taunt toward those still earthbound, who “have not dreamed of” (Line 5) the “hundred things” (Line 4) the pilot has done. This activity is unique, the profundity of which the pilot only begins to realize in the second stanza.

The stanza break allows for a shift in tone and consciousness. The playfulness of the plane and pilot diminishes as the plane rises and shifts into a movement of “easy grace” (Line 9). Once they have gotten the plane as high as it can go, the emotions the pilot feels moves from pure pleasure into awe. They are now confronted by the fact they have “topped the wind-swept heights” (Line 10). Reaching the pinnacle makes them aware they are in a space that—even besides human exploration—no “lark nor ever eagle flew” (Line 11). The pilot has gone beyond the reach of any other living thing. The ground is unseen below and they are suspended.

The gliding on “wind-swept heights” (Line 10) tempers the earlier bragging, and the pilot reaches a significant epiphany. They realize that their “high flight” is a remarkable rarity, a sort of miracle that has pushed beyond human experience and nature’s aptitude. This is increased when they enter “the high untrespassed sanctity of space” (Line 13). Its beauty is so keen it leads the pilot to think of heavenly things—and their words become religious. With “silent lifting mind” (Line 12), they are so moved that they feel that they are able to “put out [their] hand, and touc[h] the face of God” (Line 15). What begins as a joyous, exhilarating jaunt becomes a holy experience in which the pilot is overcome with reverence.

Magee’s poem therefore explores the actual experience of high-altitude flight, while also touching on the transcendent beauty of nature and the emotional charge of spirituality.