Do you know why the caged bird sings? and High flight a WWII poem

[Juliette ne pas]

Do you know why the caged bird sings?

Its song sweet yet mournful.

Why does it not try to escape when released and instead returns to its cage.

Is it chained by fear of harm or the unknown, it will not say.

It sits behind bars in a space too small for it to spread it's wings and fly.

What has it done to be treated so cruely?

Has it commited a crime, or is it for the pleasure of mankind?

Do you know why the caged bird sings so sweetly?

It sings to remind itself of days gone by and for the hope of tomorrow.

That's why the caged bird sings, sings so sweetly.

 

 

"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 wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

[h=3]John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (9 June 1922 – 11 December 1941)[/h]It was because of this poem I have such a love of flying...