MID Lochaber's wilds, or dark Glencoe,
High up the pillared mountain's steepest side,
The Eagle, from her eyry on the crag
Of over-jutting rock, beholds afar.
Viewing the distant flocks, with ranging eye
She meditates the prey; but waits the time
When seas of mist extend along the vale,
And, rising gradual, reach her lofty shore:
Up then to sunny regions of the air
She soars, and looks upon the white-wreathed summits
Of mountains, seeming ocean isles, then down
She plunges, stretching through the hazy deep;
Unseen she flies, and, on her playful quarry,
Pounces unseen: The shepherd knows his loss,
When high o'er-head he hears a passing bleat
Faint, and more faintly, dying far away.
And now aloft she bends her homeward course,
Loaded, yet light; and soon her youngling pair,
Joyful descry her buoyant wing emerge
And float along the cloud; fluttering they stoop
Upon the dizzy brink, as if they aimed
To try the abyss, and meet her coming breast;
But soon her coming breast, and outstretched wings,
Glide shadowing down, and close upon their heads.
Nor does the wintry blast, the drifting fall,
Shrouded in night, and, with a death-hand grasp,
Benumning life, drive her to seek the roof
Of cave, or hollow cliff; firm on her perch,
Her ancient and accustomed rock, she sits,
With wing-couched head, and, to the morning light,
Appears a frost-rent fragment, coped with snow.
AGLE! this is not thy sphere!
Warrior-bird, what seek'st thou here?
Wherefore by the fountain's brink
Doth thy royal pinion sink?
Wherefore on the violet's bed
Lay'st thou thus thy drooping head?
Thou, that hold'st the blast in scorn,
Thou, that wear'st the wings of morn!
Eagle! wilt thou not arise?
Look upon thine own bright skies!
Lift thy glance! the fiery sun
There his pride of place has won,
And the mountain lark is there,
And sweet sound hath fill'd the air:
Hast thou left that realm on high?
-Oh, it can be but to die!
Eagle! Eagle! thou hast bowed
From thine empire o'er the cloud!
Thou that hadst ethereal birth,
Thou hast stoop'd too near the earth,
And the hunter's shaft hath found thee,
And the toils of death have bound thee,
-Wherefore did'st thou leave thy place,
Creature of a kingly race?
Wert thou weary of thy throne?
Was the sky's dominion lone?
Chill and lone it well might be,
Yet that mighty wing was free!
Now the chain is o'er thee cast:
From thy heart the blood flows fast,
-Woe for gifted souls and high!
Is not such their destiny?
HE tawny Eagle seats his callow brood
High on the cliff, and feasts his young with
On Snowdon's rocks, or Orkney's wide domain,
Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the western main,
The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms
Amidst the gathering clouds and sullen storms;
Through the wide waste of air he darts his sight,
And holds his sounding pinions pois'd for flight;
With cruel eye premeditates the war,
And marks his destin'd victim from afar :
Descending in a whirlwind to the ground,
His pinions like the rush of waters sound;
The fairest of the fold he bears away,
And to his nest compels the struggling prey;
He scorns the game by meaner hunters tore,
And dips his talons in no vulgar gore.
E clasps the crag with hooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
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