"On laughter-silvered wings"

"'Surly Bonds' says it all," writes our imail correspondent, adding "Some kind of inner, spiritual life is so important. Otherwise, 'they blow up so fast.'" (see cartoon above, via Maggie's Farm) Our previous post was all about the glory of art that sets ourselves apart from those of our fellow homo sapiens who would blow us to smithereens for not toeing their joyless line.

Most folks we know are ever yearning to breathe free:

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.

-- RCAF Flight-Lieutenant John Gillespie Magee Jr.
(1922-1941).

But sheep prefer to follow the bellwether. It saves them from having to think for themselves.

Comments

[buddy larsen]

Beautiful poem. Check out this lovely page (scroll past the poem to the story of the author):

[Sissy Willis]

Thanks, Buddy. Very inspiring and tear inducing.

[Gayle Miller]

This post is absolutely breathtaking in its beauty and its straight-to-the-point incisive elegance. But this: "But sheep prefer to follow the bellwether. It saves them from having to think for themselves." is sheer genius and perfectly describes the liberal loons who lack intelligence, character, wit and, most fatally, any sense of humor or irony.

You write so well! You think so well!

[Sissy Willis]

Well, thank you very much, ma'am. :-)