Bayard Taylor: The Eagle Hunter

The Eagle Hunter

On the mighty summit, heaten
By the wintry sleet, I wander,
For I seek the monarch eagle

In his eyrie of the rock;
And I shout in fierce exulting,
When his gray wing on the darkness
Of the cloud above me flashes,

Wheeling downward to the shock!

Nearer, with his keen eye burning,
And his hungry beak extended —
With a shriek of anger swooping

Comes the storm-defying bird :
Yet as steady and unswerving,
Upward flies the fatal arrow,
And his death-cry on the sweeping

Of the sounding winds is heard!

From his wing I rob the plumage,
And it crowns me like a chieftain.
And his talons stud my girdle

Like the scales of olden mail;
Never wears the wild ranchero
Such a trophy on the vega,
Or the fiery-eyed Navajo,

In the Colorado’s vale!

Bayard Taylor
(1825 – 1878)
The Eagle Hunter

fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Department of Birds of Prey, Western Fiction