Poems (Follen)/The Captive Eagle

by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

THE CAPTIVE EAGLE.

Hail, noble captive! king of birds!
 What tongue can tell thy misery!
Were thy dumb sorrow put in words,
 What heart that would not pity thee?

Undazzled to the orb of day
 Thine eye of light looks up in vain:
It cannot melt thy chains away:
 Thou never shalt be free again.

Flap thy broad wings, spend all thy strength;
 Scream on, poor bird! you idly rave:
That royal crest shall droop at length;
 For thou art doomed to be a slave.

Thou look'st up to the hollow skies,
 Where thou hast wound thy spiral flight,—
Those azure depths where human eyes
 Shrink from the intolerable light.

Thou gazest till thou dost forget
 The weight and pressure of thy chain;
And, upward striving, thinkest yet
 Thy bright blue home thou shalt regain.

Vain is thy spirit's eager bound,
 And all in vain thy noble birth;
Fettered thou liest on the ground,
 A clod-bound, common thing of earth.

My heart aches for thee, noble bird!
 Fain would I free thee, if I could;
But more it longs to hear that word
 Which endeth human servitude.

I have no right to waste on thee,
 Poor thing! the power of sympathy:
Forgetful of the agony
 Of human hearts in slavery.