The Eagle

I saw a wild bird on a rock,

By sun-fire tried and tempest-shock;

Rider and tamer of the wind,

A king among his kingly kind.

Dim as the dim and quiet night,

He sat there, folded in his might;

Still as the rock, so still and gray,

He sat the solemn hours away.

"Hears he," I mused, "the melody,

The dream-sound, in the mountain tree;

And does remembered glory thrill

That proudest spirit of the hill?"

Round his shut wings and humbled head,

A voice from out the silence said,—

The eagle, when the day is done,

Forgets he faced the flaming sun.