The bird of Jove, stoop'd from his aery tour, Two birds of gayest plume before him drove.

King of the peak and glacier, King of the cold, white scalps, He lifts his head at that close tread, The eagle of the Alps.

He 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.

Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle.

Around, around in ceaseless circles wheeling With clangs of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed Incessantly.

My free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax; no levelled malice Infects one comma in the course I hold, But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind.