University of Virginia Library

LINES ON A PRISONED EAGLE.

Once most majestical of Earth's free things,
How sadly droop thy proud and powerful wings—
How didst thou once urge far thy stormy course,
Tempesting the air around with haughtiest force,
And soaring into Heaven's blue arch intense,
Gorgeous with uttermost magnificence!
Thou scornedst the earth—thou mockedst at the ground,
Thou playedst with the elements unbound;
And thou art fettered—thou art now enchained
Unto that earth so much by thee disdained.
The Sun hath lost his mightiest worshipper,
Shattering the old Silence with triumphant stir!
Still didst thou pay thy homage—free and bold,
O'ercanopied by clouds of burning gold:
At his Eternal and magnific shrine—
Brightly sublime—illustriously divine!
Oh! ye unchanging and outshining skies,
Ye wear your crown of old sublimities—
Though he who soared into your chrystal height,
And drank even at your fountainhead of light,
May never more his splendid homage pay
At those resplendent courts of radiant day!
As richly do ye glow—as brightly smile,
Though he be bound and fettered here the while!
Poor prisoned Eagle! how didst thou of old
With proud audacity and ardour bold
Soar statelily and haughtily on high,
Even when the tempest brooded in the sky,
Sailing amid the thunder-charged storm clouds,
That heaved along that sky in leaguering crowds;
And now, when Lightnings shiver o'er thy head,
Thou cowerest, chained and dungeoned—worse than dead!
Thou biddest us think of the immortal Mind
Entombed on Earth, and cabinned, and confined!
While still 'tis wakened, rapt, inspired, o'erwrought
By things mysterious to its troubled thought,
And tempted other regions to explore,
And strongly moved to glorious heights to soar;
And yet the while from these bright regions thrust,
And prisoned down in darkness and in dust.
Yes! of that Mind like some embodied ray,
That mind—so shrouded in its mortal clay—
Art thou, oh! fettered Eagle!—bound and chained,
And harshly curbed, and heavily constrained,
Like some embodied ray of mighty mind
That fain would leave its earthly home behind,
Yet is condemned to suffer and to sigh
Far from its proper clime, its native sky!
But thou hast deeper cause to faint and droop,
Uncheered like that with a Majestic Hope!
Thy being hath a limit and a bound,
And thou must still lie fettered to the ground;
But that shall yet rejoicing soar away
Into the Ethereal regions of the Day.
The hour for that assuredly shall come
Which yet shall see it gain its Heavenly Home!
Yes! in some future though some far off hour
Shall it career in Glory, Triumph, Power,
And win a deep and everlasting Dower!
And rend a way through glorious worlds on high,
Bathed in the boundless splendours of the sky!
And then more free than the unbridled wind
Shall be that lightened and enfranchised Mind;
Then shall its thoughts, far loftier than before,
Melt in unlapsing music evermore.
Borne o'er Earth's triumphs—fervours—agonies—
Into the placid calm of yon pure skies;
Then shall be opened to its raptured sight
Worlds—flooding worlds with cataracts of Light!
Then shall it glow with fires of quenchless truth,
And revel in divine Eternal Youth!
And gaze on mysteries—opened and revealed—
That long had been from human senses sealed!
Oh! yet that mind—that deep immortal mind—
Shall leave its trammels and its ties behind.
Thou art not like it—Eagle!—bound and chained—
That shall not be for evermore constrained!