The Source: In drafting Reagan's

The Source: In drafting Reagan's comments that day, Peggy Noonan used as inspiration a poem written by Pilot-Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., RCAF, who was a Canadian Spitfire pilot. It first appeared in the New York Herald Tribune on February 8, 1942.

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 thewind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew,
And, while with silent, lifting mind I´ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.