THE EAGLE
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls:
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Alfred Tennyson
When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head.
William Blake, The Marriage of leaven d Hell
The Ancients say that the wing-feathers of an eagle, mixed with those of common
birds, will burn and consume them.
Seerets of Albertus Magnus
For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of
our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly: you may
have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the
labor of the fishing-hawk; and, when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bear-
ing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and
takes it from him. With all this injustice he is never in good case; like those among men who
live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank
coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow, attacks him boldly and drives him out
of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cin-
cinnati of America, who have driven all the kingbirds from our country; though exactly fit for
that order of knights, which the French call Chevaliers d'Industrie.
Benjamin Franklin, Letters
Dec 21st, 1664... .Thence
to Mrs. Turner's, in Salisbury Court, and with her a
little, and carried her, the porter staying for me, our eagle, which she desired the other day,
and we were glad to be rid of her, she fouling our house of office mightily.
Samuel Pepys, Diary
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