EAGLES AND AET. 237 



for with, a roar of sudden wings and gleam of a golden burn- 

 ish, came it not down upon thee out of the still air 'that 

 fearful retribution thou undutiful truant ? 



In the giddiness of thy wanton youth, didst thou not wan- 

 der away from that fond and anxious sheep, which was to 

 thee a mother ? Kegardless of the agonized bleatings by 

 which she sought to recall thee to her dugs, didst thou not 

 continue to climb the mountain-side, and in heedless aggra- 

 vation of her tearful woe, frisk upon the perilous verge of 

 bleakest rocks, where the strong winds made the grass to sing 

 underneath thy hoofs ? 



In the blindness of thy obdurate pride of place, thou 

 couldst not see the danger ; but in a fell swoop it is upon thee 

 now ! Ay, it is too late to shrink ! too late to turn back thy 

 repentant heart to that poor deserted parent, whose prolonged 

 and plaintive ba-a-a fills all the valley too late ! 



Ah, rash ambition, it is ever thus I Thou Phaeton, thou 

 Icarus of lambkins ! why could not the lowly plain content 

 thee ? " The aspiration in thy heel " has been sad for thee ; 

 it has but brought thee to thy downfall ! 



Poor lamb ! there is a vivid life here that makes thy pangs 

 seem real, and we almost shudder while those terrible talons 

 burn into the tender flesh ; and while the aerial robber pauses 

 with mighty wings outstretched, we can see the yellow shine 

 of ravin in its eye, glow as pitiless as if we stood near the 

 fierce bird alive, when it had just stooped from amidst the 

 cloudy crags of the White Mountains upon some vagrant 

 firstling of a New Hampshire farmer's flock. 



This is no mere fable, but is a breathing and living truth 

 out of the natural world ; at least its life in form and colors 

 is like breathing. It is more than the old fable, for our 

 modern JSsop is the artist, who tells his story with the pen- 

 cil and the burin rather than the wagging tongue. 



If he make bird and beast speak together, as they used to 

 for our childhood in that old book, it is not by the unnatural 

 use of human speech, but in action, real presentations of their 



