A tribute to the crew of the Columbia space shuttle.

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19 year old John G. Magee composed this immortal poem months before his tragic death in 1941 in an airplane crash. President Reagan used an excerpt from this poem when he addressed the nation after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. It seemed fitting to put this poem to music as a tribute to the astronauts of the space shuttle Columbia.

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.

(c) 1941 - John Gillespie Magee, Jr.