Poetry corner
 

While we are all animated at the prospect of what patch 4.10 will bring us, and some are already trying to strech the envelope toward 4.11 and beyond, I thought I would share with you a verse penned by a Sptifire pilot who didn't make it.

Many of you will probably know it, but I make no apology for reminding you of it. For those to whom it's new. read on, and revel.


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 windswept 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.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No. 412 Squadron, RCAF
Killed, 11 December 1941

I swear, that reminds of of being a kid. Back in the olden days, when we only had 4 channels or so and even those took some tinkering to get in clearly, those channels signed off late at night. For many of them, there was a film clip of a fighter plane with this poem being dramatically read over it.

Heck, sometimes, if I was up late, I would hang on until I got to see the little film clip. And of course, it all then went to a test pattern :).

Splitter

Man you were deprived, we had seven but only two had cartoons.lol the good old days, whats funny is we didn't know it sucked.:-)

That poem holds a very special place in my heart. I read that at my fathers funeral earlier this year.

Truly an honorable verse, well quoted haven’t heard it in a while kudos.

You had cartoons?! :cry:

I tried to explain to a 20 something the other day how we used to change channels...with a knob....and when that broke you used a pair of vice grips.

He never got it.

Splitter

My Dad use to freak when we turned the channel. It would sound like a machine gun just not as loud, we would spin the knob a little to fast. lol