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, Lord Tennyson
By: Bageri Hamidi
bageri_hamidi@hotmail.com
The two stanzas of the poem exhibit the grandeur and power of an eagle. The rhyme scheme of the two stanzas (aaa bbb) reinforces the rigidity of the structure in which the eagle dwells.
The use of the alliteration on the sound /k/ in the words “clasps, crag, crooked, close” is well fitted to the harshness of the overall atmosphere that surrounds the eagle. The grandeur of the eagle is supported by the implication of its mythological origin. Eagle was the bird of Zeus. Zeus was Lord of the sky, the rain-god, who wielded the awful thunderbolt. The sky is implied by a metaphor: “The azure world” is spread out in a ring around the eagle. The metaphor enhances the loneliness of the eagle.
The eagle is also personified. The eagle has hands in the first line. It is referred to by the pronoun “he”. Nevertheless, the personification is completed in the 5th line. The eagle watches from his mountain walls. A wall is a fabric built by men, so it is a human word. The use of “his” is also very important. The animals do not own property. The emphasis on the personification of the eagle puts the eagle in a human context.
The second stanza reads from the eagle’s vantage point of view. Seen from far above, the waves give the appearance of wrinkles, and as they move, they seem to be snakes. Therefore, the verb “crawls” is properly employed. It metaphorically identifies the sea with the snakes. The snakes are appropriate preys for the eagles. This concrete image motivates the lightening-like swoop of the eagle downward. However, it is quite obvious that the eagle is swindled by a wrong image. He will receive no reward.
Therefore, the poem “The Eagle” shows the release of a bold spirit into a moment of a wrong insight in a thinking man who enjoys having a lonely power and an independent grandeur.