 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
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THE SLAIN EAGLE. (Saluda.)
I.
The noble bird! What mighty stretch of wing—Seven feet from tip to tip! And what an eye,
That glares in death, as with the will to spring,
Spurn earth, and rush into the blazing sky!
What talons!—that shall lift the lamb on high,
And bear it to its heights, nor feel the weight!
Emblem of power, and might, and majesty,
Yet victim of the feeblest stroke of fate,
Transfixed by Indian shaft, when soaring in thy state!
II.
The eye that stopt thy flight, with deadly aim,Had less of fire and beauty than thine own;
The arm that cast thee down could never claim
Such matchless vigor as thy wing hath shown,
Yet art thou, in thy pride of flight, o'erthrown:
And the great rocks that echoed back thy scream,
As from the rolling clouds thou sent'st it down,
No more shall see thy red-eyed glances stream,
From their wild summits round, with fierce and terrible gleam!
III.
Lone and majestic monarch of the cloud!No more shalt thou o'ersweep the mountain's brow,
Mocking the storm, when from its vampire shroud
It pours wild torrents on the plains below!
Thou, with thy fearless wing, yet free to go,
All undebarr'd, undaunted in thy flight,
As scorning, while defying, every foe;
Shrieking, with clarion burst, thy conscious might,
That, for a hundred years, hath kept the unchallenged height!
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IV.
Thou had'st no dread of danger! Thy great prideKept thee from fear! Breasting the wintry storms,
Thy mighty pinions have stretched far and wide—
Have triumphed, struggling with a thousand forms
Of terror! Thou hast felt such strife but warms
The sovereign courage; and with joyful shriek,
Sang of the rapturous battle—its wild charms
For the born warrior of the mountain peak,
He, of the giant brood, sharp talons, bloody beak!
V.
How hast thou, in thy very mirth, stretched farThy wings in flight; with freedom that became
Miraculous in license; still at war
With winds and clouds and storms, that could not tame
Thy spirit, nor arrest thy sinewy frame!—
Such power and courage, such a billowy flight,
Man wonders to behold, and calls it Fame!
His soul, when noblest soaring into light,
But follows in thy track, at once of aim and might!
VI.
Morning, above the hills, and from the ocean,Ne'er sprang aloft into the fetterless blue
With such a glorious grace and godlike motion,
Nor from her amber pinions cast the dew
That hung about her path, and dimm'd her view,
With greater ease than thou—resolv'd to steer
Onward, through storm—hast sped with courses true,
Though winds pipe high, and arrowy lightnings glare,
Thy Day-Star wrapt in shroud, through fathomless fields of air.
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VII.
Thus eminent in vision as in wing,With ever paramount purpose to achieve
The highest; scorning to keep low, and cling
To earthy thraldoms; but, by might, to grieve
The emulous crowds who vainly would conceive
Thy secret, and o'ercome the height and space;
I find a faith that sways me to believe
Thou wast designed, the model of a race,
For conquest born, like thee, and wing'd for loftiest place!
VIII.
Let men but once behold thee in thy sweepO'er mountain heights to heaven, and straight they grow
To stature; and the big thought, fond and deep,
Works in them with a restlessness like wo,
Till they have put on wings, and felt the glow
Of flight and might, like thine; and with their eyes
Have sought the secrets of the cloud to know;
And bathing their grand plumage in the skies,
Feel ever, with the will, the wing and power to rise!
IX.
Alas, for thee! Even from the chosen race,The antagonist nature, loathing thy estate,
With subtle arts, the virtue of the base,
Barbs the sharp arrow that becomes thy fate.
The very bright of glory 'genders hate;
The grandeur of the sun himself will bring
The clouds about the shining of his state;
And he who hath no moral, but a sting,
Will hound with hate the steps of each superior thing.
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X.
And thus it is that such as thou go'st down,Even at the highest; thy imperial flight
Stay'd, sudden, in career; when, all thine own,
The sun had made thee brother of his light,
And earth and skies maintained no eminent height
Baffling thy pinion; rival wings no more
Waged conflict; and thy might had grown to right!—
Supreme, o'er sky, and rock, and wood, and shore,
Thine was the sovereign wing, as thine the will to soar!
XI.
Of all the race, from out the ranks of men—The million moilers, with down-looking eyes—
Perchance but one, beholding thee, as when
Thy wing was bathed in beauty of the skies,
Grew lifted by thy flight, and thence grew wise:
To struggle through the cloud, with emulous aim;
Achieve the grand condition; and arise,
Through hate and envy, rivalry and blame,
To sway, on loftiest terms, in highest homes of fame.
XII.
How hath he watch'd thy wing, to see how vain,From his great central eminence, the sun
Shot forth his brazen arrows to restrain
Thy triumph!—how the storm, with aspect dun,
His ice-bolts vainly might they beat upon
Thy buckler!—To their presence didst thou fly,
And Eblis-like, undaunted and alone,
Thou didst confront the Unknown; his power defy,
And to thy sun-god's face uplift thy rebel eye!
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XIII.
And he who watch'd thee then had hope to soarEven with a wing like thine. His daring glance
Sought, with as bold a vision, to explore
The secret of his own deliverance,
As of his thraldom; eager to advance
To sovereign sway like thine—above his race;
To rise and rule, the better to enhance
The virtues in their gift, with gifts of grace;
Lifting them proudly up to his superior place.
XIV.
He triumphs in his flight; but not in aim!He strives for those who, with a resolute will,
Reject the blessing; loathe the very fame;
Prone to the dust and eating of it still,
As did the serpent, never having fill!
To the base spirit, obligation grows
A torture, and all gratitude is shame!
Hate finds increase with sense of what it owes,
And while one hand receives, the other 'quites with blows.
XV.
He triumphs, but he perishes, like thee,O sun-brow'd eagle!—scales the sovran heights;
Cleaves clouds; mounts tempests; feels his pinions free;
Wantons in worlds of empire; and, in flights
That fill his soul with paramount delights,
Endows his race with provinces of pride;
New thoughts and attributes; new fields and rights;
Then sudden, when on topmost height astride,
Falls—smitten by hand so base that even the base deride!
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XVI.
O glorious bird! whose wing hath pierced the cloud;Nor sun nor storm had barrier proof to thee!
Thine was the soul, magnanimous as proud,
That stoop'd not; but, majestically free,
Won heights whose secrets man shall never see.
Ah! where thy spirit now? the wing that bore?
Thou hast lost wing, and all—save liberty!
Death only could subdue—and that is o'er—
Alas! the very hind who slew thee might deplore.
XVII.
The missile sped, the victim at his feet,How looks he now, with sense of sudden shame,
At the great vans, the pinions that so fleet,
Held pace with winds, and on their wings became
A pioneer to realms that have no name!
Wings broken now: and dim the dying eye,
Dilating with the effort still to claim
Its summits; straining upward for that sky
Which vainly woos its vans to light and liberty.
XVIII.
A proud exemplar hath been lost the proud!—Oh! he that smote thee in thy fearless flight,
Had wiselier follow'd thee, and fled the crowd,
That babbling now take measure of thy might,
Stretch wide thy pinions, and with wondering sight
Compute thy talons! Had he not been base,
With wretched comrades, he had found delight
To take the lessons of thy nobler race,
And make his way, through thought, to some superior place.
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XIX.
'Tis he should weep for thee: for he hath lostThe model of dominion! Not for him
The mighty eminence; the gathering host
That worships; the great glittering pomps that dim;
The tribute homage and the hailing hymn!
He might have had a life, that, to a star,
Rises from dust, and sheds the holiest gleam,
To light the struggling nations from afar,
And show to kindred souls where fruits of glory are.
XX.
Behold him now, where, clamoring o'er his prey,He tells you how his secret shaft was sped:
He lurk'd within the rocky cleft all day,
Till the proud bird rose surging o'er his head,
At sunset, when he slew him! O'er the dead
Exults he now; yet, had those eyes their fire,
Were but those talons unclasped, those vans outspread,
The dastard had shrunk trembling from the ire
Whose very glance had quench'd each foe's most fierce desire.
XXI.
How basely do we seek to overthrowThe thing we are not! The ignoble mind
Thus ever aims to strike, with secret blow,
The nobler, finer beings of their kind;
In this their petty villany is blind:
They smite their benefactors; men who keep
Their homes from degradation; men designed
Their guides and guardians; well, if they may creep,
At last, to honoring shrines, and o'er their victims weep.
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XXII.
Farewell, proud bird!—this human homily,How vain for those who fall, and those who hate!
Who now shall teach thy young ones how to fly?
Who fill the presence of thy longing mate?
Ah! type of Genius, bitter is thy fate!
The shaft of meanest boor may leave them lone—
Thy eaglets and the partner of thy state:
Shaft from the very fen whence thou hast flown,
And feather from the wing thy own wing hath struck down!
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |