University of Virginia Library

EAGLE AND AEROPLANE.

The birds that have travelled so long between the unfeathered races and the sky, cannot understand the balloon and the aeroplane. The smaller ones give these formidable-looking engines of the air a wide berth, while the larger and more powerful ones sometimes attack them and their occupants.

As the science of Aviation continues to make progress, birds of all sizes will no doubt learn to get out of the way as soon as they can, when they view an air-craft approaching: and we may yet see bird-hunts from aeroplanes or dirigibles, as one of the approved sports of the day.

Who are you, speeding along this way
Above my head?
Why do you come to the clouds today?
The eagle said.
Had you not heard that pathways high
Only were made for such as I?
Did you not know that from your birth,
You were appointed to walk the earth?
Do as you long were wont to do:
Stab my mountains and creep them through;
Swim your rivers or bridge them o'er;
Ferry the seas from shore to shore;
Plunge through halls of a starless deep,
Where the hosts of the tempests sleep
And count their dead;
But you were made not, as was I,
On the wings of the winds to fly!
The eagle said.
What in my country do you seek?
What is of wealth on the mountain peak?
Which of the gems has it begot?
Where is its gold, excepting what
The sun has shed,
You who squander the hoards you save—
Haughty slaves of the “yellow slave”?
The Eagle said.
Dig in the earth for earth that buys:
Clutch with your greedy hands and eyes,
What, if it win your poor heart, will
Serve but to make you greedier still—
By food unfed;
What do you care for the sky above
More than to aid your own self-love?
The eagle said.
Even your daring flight today—
So the gossiping birdlets say,
With gold is wed:
You, a hero of skies, indeed!
Back to your stony dens of greed,
By avarice fed!
Then did the bird, with beak and wing,
Straight at the throat of the airman spring,
Looking a rage he could not speak,
Tearing away with claws and beak.
But from the bold intruder came
Five sharp volleys of blinding flame,
And piercing lead:
Symbol of heroism, beware!
Doff the emperorship of air!
The echoes said.
Maimed and bleeding, and sick with hate,
Fluttered the bird to his fierce-eyed mate,
Where, on a ragged rock and gray,
She with her callow fledgelings lay.
Do not again such conflict dare,
Screamed this lioness of the air:
Men will yet journey here in crowds:
You are no more the King of Clouds.
Man is the only mortal who
Whate'er he wills to do, will do.
Though he be wayward oft, and wild,
Still he is God's own well-loved child—
From angels bred:
If he will only do and dare,
He can yet rule Earth, Sea, and Air!
The eagless said.