An extract from St Paul's first letter to the people of Corinth

Brethren: If I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but not have love, I am a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. And if I were a prophet and knew all mysteries and had all knowledge, and if I should have faith so great that I could move mountains, but not have love, I am nothing. And if I were to give away everything I have to feed the poor, and if I were to hand over my body to be burned, but not have love, I would gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind. Love is not jealous; it does not put on airs; it is not snobbish. Love does nothing rude; it is not self-seeking; it is not prone to anger; it does not brood over injuries. Love is not happy over iniquity, but rejoices along with the truth. Love covers over everything, believes everything, hopes for everything, puts up with everything. Love never fails. Prophecies will pass away, tongues will be silent and knowledge will pass away. We have only incomplete knowledge and our prophesying is incomplete. When that which is complete comes, then the incomplete will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. But when I became a man, I put aside childish ways. We see now in a mirror, in a confused sort of way; but then we shall see face to face. Now I have only partial knowledge; then I shall know even as I am known. Here and now there are three gifts that endure: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The Wanderer

I wander through the woodland; Peace to you days a-dying,
I tune a song the trees among; But oft-times comes a-crying.
I know more than Apollo; For oft when he lies sleeping
I see the stars at mortal wars; And the rounded welkin weeping
The morn's my constant mistress; The lovely owl my morrow
The flaming drake and the night crow make; Me music to my sorrow
With a heart of furious fancies; Where-of I am commander
With a burning spear and a horse of air; To the wilderness I wander
With a knight of ghosts and shadows; I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wideworld's end; Me thinks it is no journey

Adapted from "Wit and Drollery" 1661, author anonymous.
Set to music by Sir Edward Elgar

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 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.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941