The Gray Forest-Eagle

With storm-daring pinion and sun-gazing eye,
The gray forest-eagle is king of the sky!
O, little he loves the green 'valley of flowers,
Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours,
For he hears in those haunts only music, and sees
Only rippling of waters and waving of trees;
There the red robin warbles, the honey-bee hums,
The timid quail whistles, the sly partridge drums;
And if those proud pinions, perchance, sweep along,
There 's a shrouding of plumage, a hushing of song;
The sunlight falls stilly on leaf and on moss,
And there's naught but his shadow black gliding across;
But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam
Of the fierce, rock-lash'd torrent, he claims as his home:
There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood,
And the many-voiced sounds of the blast-smitten wood;
From the crag-grasping fir-top, where morn hangs its wreath,
He views the mad waters white writhing beneath:
On a limb of that moss-bearded hemlock far down,
With bright azure mantle and gay mottled crown,
The kingfisher watches, where o'er him his foe,
The fierce hawk, sails circling, each moment more low:
Now poised are those pinions and pointed that beak,
His dread swoop is ready, when, hark! with a shriek,
His eye-balls red-blazing, high bristling his crest,
His snake-like neck arch'd, talons drawn to his breast,
With the rush of the wind-gust, the glancing of light,
The gray forest-eagle shoots down in his flight;
One blow of those talons, one plunge of that neck,
The strong hawk hangs lifeless, a blood-dripping wreck;
And as dives the free kingfisher, dart-like on high
With his prey soars the eagle, and melts in the sky.
A fitful red glaring, a low, rumbling jar,
Proclaim the storm demon yet raging afar:
The black cloud strides upward, the lightning more red,
And the roll of the thunder more deep and more dread;
A thick pall of darkness is cast o'er the air,
And on bounds the blast with a howl from its lair:
The lightning darts zig-zag and fork'd through the gloom,
And the bolt launches o'er with crash, rattle, and boom;
The gray forest-eagle, where, where has he sped?
Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread?
Does the glare blind his eye? Has the terrible blast
On the wing of the sky-king a fear-fetter cast?
JNro, no, the brave eagle! he thinks not of fright;
The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight;
To the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam,
To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream,
And with front like a warrior that speeds to the fray,
And a clapping of pinions, he 's up and away!
Away, O, away, soars the fearless and free!
What recks he the sky's strife! — its monarch is he!
The lightning darts round him, undaunted his sight;
The blast sweeps against him, unwaver'd his flight;
High upward, still upward, he wheels, till his form
Is lost in the black, scowling gloom of the storm.
The tempest sweeps o'er with its terrible train,
And the splendour of sunshine is glowing again;
Again smiles the soft, tender blue of the sky,
Waked bird-voices warble, fann'd leaf-voices sigh;
On the green grass dance shadows, streams sparkle and run,
The breeze bears the odour its flower-kiss has won,
And full on the form of the demon in flight
The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight!
The gray forest-eagle! O, where is he now,
While the sky wears the smile of its God on its brow!
There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath,
With the speed of the arrow 't is shooting beneath!
Down, nearer and nearer it draws to the gaze,
Now over the rainbow, now blent with its blaze,
To a shape it expands, still it plunges through air,
A proud crest, a fierce eye, a broad wing are there;
'Tis the eagle — the gray forest-eagle — once more
He sweeps to his eyrie: his journey is o'er!
Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away,
But the gray forest-eagle minds little his sway;
The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom,
Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb;
But the eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
The green, tiny pine-shrub points up from the moss,
The wren's foot would cover it, tripping across;
The beech-nut down dropping would crush it beneath,
But 'tis warm'd with heaven's sunshine, and
fann'd by its breath;
The seasons fly past it, its head is on high,
Its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky;
On its rough bark the moss a green mantle creates,
And the deer from his antlers the velvet-down grates;
Time withers its roots, it lifts sadly in air
A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagg'd and bare,
Till it rocks in the soft breeze, and crashes to earth,
Its blown fragments strewing the place of its birth.
The eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight,
He has seen it defying the storm in its might,
Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting o'er,
But the gray forest-eagle is still as of yore,
His flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
He has seen from his eyrie the forest below
In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow.
The thickets,deep wolf-lairs,the high crag his throne,
And the shriek of the panther has answer'd his own.
He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades,
And the smoke of his wigwams curl thick in the glades;
He has seen the proud forest melt breath-like away,
And the breast of the earth lying bare tn the day;
He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair,
And his crag-throne spread naked to sun and to air;
And his shriek is now answer'd, while sweeping along,
By the low of the herd and the husbandman's song;
He has seen the wild red man off-swept by his foes,
And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose;
But his naming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty, and high,
Is the gray forest-eagle, that king of the sky!
It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of earth —
By the mountain and torrent it springs into birth;
There rock'd by the wild wind, baptized in the foam,
It is guarded and cherish'd, and there is its home!
When its shadow steals black o'er the empires of kings,
Deep terror, deep heart-shaking terror it brings;
Where wicked Oppression is arm'd for the weak,
Then rustles its pinion, then echoes its shriek;
Its eye flames with vengeance, it sweeps on its way,
And its talons are bathed in the blood of its prey.
O, that eagle of Freedom! when cloud upon cloud
Swathed the sky of my own native land with a shroud,
When lightnings gleam'd fiercely, and thunderbolts rung,
How proud to the tempest those pinions were flung!
Though the wild blast of battle swept fierce through the air
With darkness and dread, still the eagle was there;
Unquailing, still speeding, his swift flight was on,
Till the rainbow of Peace crown'd the victory won.
O, that eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye,
He has seen Earth's mortality spring, bloom,and die!
He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish, and fall,
He mocks at Time's changes, he triumphs o'er all:
He has seen our own land with wild forests o'erspread,
He sees it with sunshine and joy on its head;
And his presence will bless this, his own, chosen clime,
Till the archangel's fiat is set upon time,