On Seeing an Eagle Pass Near Me in Autumn Twilight

Sail on, thou lone, imperial bird,
Of quenchless eye and tireless wing;
How is thy distant coming heard,
As the night's breezes round thee ring!
Thy course was 'gainst the burning sun
In his extremest glory. How!
Is thy unequall'd daring done,
Thou stoop'st to earth so lowly now?
Or hast thou left thy rocking dome,
Thy roaring crag, thy lightning pine,
To find some secret, meaner home,
Less stormy and unsafe than thine?
Else why thy dusky pinions bend
So closely to this shadowy world,
And round thy searching glances send,
As wishing thy broad pens were furl'd?
Yet lonely is thy shatter'd nest,
Thy eyry desolate, though high;
And lonely thou, alike at rest,
Or soaring in the upper sky.
The golden light that bathes thy plumes
On thine interminable flight,
Falls cheerless on earth's desert tombs,
And makes the north's ice-mountains bright.
So come the eagle-hearted down,
So come the high and proud to earth,
When life's night-gathering tempests frown
Over their glory and their mirth:
So quails the mind's undying eye,
That bore, unveil'd, fame's noontide sun;
So man seeks solitude, to die,
His high place left, his triumphs done.
So, round the residence of power,
A cold and joyless lustre shines,
And on life's pinnacles will lower
Clouds, dark as bathe the eagle's pines.
But, O, the mellow light that pours
From God's pure throne — the light that saves!
It warms the spirit as it soars,
And sheds deep radiance round our graves.