C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
From Eloa
By Alfred de Vigny (17971863)
O
The Spaniard has wounded the Asturian eagle
That threatened his white bounding flock.
With bristling plumes, and raining down blood,
The bird strikes upward to heaven, quick as a flash could descend,
Gazing up at his sun! breathing it in with wide-open beak,
As if once again his life to retake from the empire of flame.
In the golden air he swims with great strokes,
Hovers a moment in rest, ’mid the bright darting rays,—
But the aim of the man was too sure:
The hot ball burns like a coal in his wound;
His wing drops its shafts, his royal mantle its plumes;
Dispossessed of his heights, his weight bears him down,—
He sinks into the snow of the mount, with wild heaving breast;
And the cold of the earth, with its heavy death sleep,
Shuts the eyes that held the respect of the sun.