3De"^oted. to tlie StvLd-sr of o-a.r 3iTa,ti-ve DBird.s, 



THE. AMERfOAM EAGrnR. 



f HERE'S a fierce gray bird -with a beading 

 ■ beak, 

 With an angry eye and a startling shriek, 

 That nurses her brood -where the clifl- 



flowers blow; 

 On the precipice top, in perpetual snow; 

 That sits where the air is shrill and bleak, 

 On the splintered point of a shivered peak, 

 Bald-headed and striped, — like a vulture torn 

 In wind and strife — her feathers worn. 

 And ruffed and stained, while loose and bright 

 Round her serpent-neck, that is writhing and 



bare. 

 Is a crimson collar of gleaming hair. 

 Like the crest of a warrior, thinned in fight. 

 And shorn and bristling: See her! where 

 She sits, in the glow of the sun-bright air. 

 With wing half-poised and talons bleeding. 

 And kindling eye, as if her prey 

 Had suddenly been snatched away. 

 Above the dark torrents, above the bright 



stream 



The voice may be heard 

 Of the thunderer's bird 

 Calling out to her god in a clear, wild scream. 

 As she mounts to his throne, and unfolds iu 



his beam ; 

 While her young are laid out in his rich,red blaze 

 And their winglets are fledged in his hottest rays 

 Proud bird of the cliff ! where the barren yew 



springs, 

 AVhere the sunshine stays, and tlie wind harp 



sings. 

 She sits unapproachable, pluming her wings. — 

 She screams! she'saway! o'er hilltop and flood. 

 Over valley and rock, over mountain and wood. 

 That bird is abroad in the van of her brood ! 

 'Tis the bird of our banner, the free bird that 



braves 

 When the battle is there, all the wrath of the 



waves : 

 , That dips her pinions in the sun's first gush ; 

 Drinks his meridian blaze, his farewell flush ; 

 Sits amid stirring stars, and bends her beak. 

 Like the slipper falcon, when her piercing 



shriek 

 Tells that she stoops upon her cleaving wing. 

 To drink at some uew victim's clear, red spring. 

 That monarch bird ! she slumbers in the night 

 Upon the lofty air-peak's utmost height; 

 Or sleeps upon the wing, amid the ray 

 Of steady cloudless, everlasting day:— 

 Rides with the thunderer, in his blazing march, 

 And bears his lightnings o'er yon boundless 



arch; 

 Soars wheeling througli the storm, and screams 



away, 

 Where the young pinions of the morning play ; 

 Broods with her arrows in the hurricane; 

 Bears her green laurel o'er the starry plain. 

 And sails around the skies, and o'er the rolling 



deeps. 

 With still unwearied wings, and eye that never 



sleeps. — Neal. 



^m 



■piip 



