Supermarine Spitfire
Painting by Keith Ferris

Inspired by the world renowned aviator's poem by John Gillespie Magee, this painting displays the joy of flight epitomized by his poem "High Flight". magee dances among the clouds "On laughter Silvered Wings' in the Spitfire VZ-H, AD291 in which he met his death on the 11th of December 1941. The British Supermarine Spitfire is argubly the most elegant combat aircraft ever built. The title is borrowed from the second line of his wonderful poem as he defines the performance of his Spitfire and his love of flight.

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee

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've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.