THE earth, doomed to sullen rest, Into a burning space was prest, Where the Sabbath, with uplifted eyes, Lay in his own red sacrifice. Here a field died cursing, on whose demesne Nothing again sprang fresh or green; There, deadened though the air was, The turf sprouted leaden grass. And stiff as a stalk on a churchyard path Where the sun settled in his wrath, I stood, solid in silence, gazing With stone features and eyes dazing, At the big bland eagle of liberation Squatting on the village steeple. Yoked in pairs like a subject nation Into the churchyard stepped the people, Into the church. Two by two They paused, loosed hands, filled each pew, Thumbed their books: an organ rang; They opened their serried mouths and sang. Outside the heat-waves waltzed with the flow Of Alleluia! Laus Domino! In clasping curves, and the eagle sat Crushing the rafters with his wild weight, His burnished feathers blazing and Pagan eyes gripping the land. So long I looked upon him there I felt my soul change to a stare. I stared, he swelled -- prodigiously puffed Beak and body. Like a candle snuffed Blind sank the sun, till the globe was rounded With flanks of feather and black unbounded. And still I stood and breathed, my brain The pulse in a world's wrist of pain -- Thin pole projecting mind's atomies Over a wireless waste of seas. Only my thoughts in the void moved nimble, Brooding on the eagle and his symbol, And while the people murmured, while Their placid hymns ebbed from the aisle, I wondered whether the bird was fierce Or merely impatient of sitting in peace, And whether we might not have climbed the towers, Salted, caged him, and made him ours, And kept him for worship or safe derision If I had had courage, or they the vision. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEGY FOR AN ENEMY by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET NOT TRANSHISTORICAL DEATH, OR AT LEAST NOT QUITE by HAYDEN CARRUTH TO THE ROCK THAT WILL BE A CORNERSTONE OF THE HOUSE by ROBINSON JEFFERS EVENTIDE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |