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by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922 - 1941)
Translation

High Flight
Language: English  after the English 
Choose for Diff
Fly, fly, fly! I will fly, fly, fly!
I have chased the wind
And  danced the sky,
| On silvered wings to the
| laughter silvered
sun I've climbed.
And with the clouds in tumbling mirth,
I have slipped the surly bonds of earth.
Higher and higher am I.
And with these wings I fly!

Up, up the long and burning blue,
Where never lark nor eagle ever flew,,
Hovering in the silence.
Ascend, oh my soul, on the wings of the wind as it blows
| on the wings of a song,
| Up from the struggle and pain, 
Reaching to rise and reaching to fly again!
Fly, fly, fly! I will fly, fly, fly!
I have chased the wind
And  danced the sky,
| On silvered wings to the
| laughter silvered
sun I've climbed.
And with the clouds in tumbling mirth,
I have slipped the surly bonds of earth.
Higher and higher am I.
And with these wings I fly!
And with these wings I rise and fly!

Note: this adaptation also makes use of some material from Mathilde Blind's poem "Prelude — Wings".


The text shown is a variant of another text. [ View differences ]
It is based on

  • a text in English by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922 - 1941), "High flight", written 1941
    • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Laura Farnell (b. 1975), "High Flight", copyright © 2023 [ satb chorus and piano ], Santa Barbara Music Publishing
        Publisher: Santa Barbara Music Publishing [external link]
        Score: Perusal score [external link]  [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2026-09-08
Line count: 28
Word count: 171

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