Classic Poem

I

Yonder the rock, and other rocks are near
in the fixed fastness of the ice on high.
Ofttimes there circles there, ere day appear,
a monstrous shadow sinking from the sky.

II

One day it seems the rock from off its height
is moving, the ice crackling, till it sends
a thread of water from its crevice slight.

Now to the roaring dull and deep there lends
itself a whispering and a gurgling hum.
The shadow with wide open wings descends,

comes nearer, stands there, great ... What is to come?

III.

The mighty bird now rests upon the brow
of the high rock; and neath one claw he knows
the rock is sinking, neath the other now.

With great wings, silently, he comes and goes.
Big limbs of holly and the olive wild
he heaps in masses, brings from far, and throws.

And now the whispering and the murmuring mild
from cliff to cliff become a sound that roars
tumultuous, from crag to crag defiled. . . .

With full spread wings the tawny eagle soars.

IV

He soars to gaze; amid the clouds and wind
slowly he mounts the sky. The brown vales ring
with rushing waters from ravines behind.

With one ferocious cry the torrents swing
blindly, some here, some there, into the plain.
Great masses, beams and trees, cradles, they bring.

They have the hollow voice of the hurricane
and of the avalanche; and with them, bold
and swiftly clear, goes crashing their refrain.

Above the clouds, the eagle, flashing gold,
circles about with mighty strokes and slow
over the whirlpool of earth's waters cold.

Again he rises, and he sends forth, lo!
an awful cry through spaces without end.
Three times he calls, three times, intent below,

awaits the echo that the sun may send.

V

The call of love! Behold! appears on high
above the clouds, firm poised upon her wings,
the other eagle, with life's vibrant cry

trembling within her heart, her heart, that sings
the eternal pulsing of her life. She ascends
slowly, and, as she rises, swiftly brings

her thought to him. And she to him descends;
into the deep together they are whirled;
the year, the hour their fierce embrace defends:

two new great eagles wanted in the world!

VI

Ah, love! Now he, amid the crashing clear
of falling water, makes a downward bound;
he lacerates the chamois, claws the deer;

he brings red fragments and, amid profound
booms of the avalanche, his fierce cry nears
of blood and death, which swift he checks: the sound

then only of the wings the lone nest hears.

VII

Love! and she is brooding there with lofty crest
and steady gaze, daytimes and nighttimes long.
With curving beak she plucks now at her breast,

she shakes the nest. She hears her eaglets' song.