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The dalliance of the eagles

About This Item

  • Title: The dalliance of the eagles
  • Date: Late 1870s or 1880
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: uva.00092
  • Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This manuscript is a draft of "The Dalliance of the Eagles," a poem first published in Cope's Tobacco Plant in November 1880. The manuscript was likely written in the late 1870s or in 1880.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The dalliance of the eagles." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 24 October 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: uva.00092.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto]

The dalliance of the eagles

In full clear sight, high in the ample space ? I see The rushing contact amp amorous contact  
  of the eagles (The twain—the male and female) The interlocking claws, Tthe spreading wings, The spiral cutting the air together By locking talons held—one mass reliev'd against the sky Swift ^Four wings, gigantic—two beaks— Downward gyrating—splendid ^swift loops—  
 over and over falling, rolling turning, an falling,  
  pausing swift revolving circling, falling Over Abo Close to the river pausing—motionless ? a minute—balanced  
 motionless Then Till tacitly unlocking on slow majest firm pinion, then, she hers, he  
 his, their separate flight pursuing   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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