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The Dalliance of the Eagles

About This Item

  • Title: The Dalliance of the Eagles
  • Date: November 1880
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00054
  • Source: Cope's Tobacco Plant (November 1880): 552. Our transcription is based on a digital image of an original issue. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the periodical poems, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Contributors to digital file: Elizabeth Lorang April Lambert Susan Belasco
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Dalliance of the Eagles." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 19 April 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00054.xml (TEI)
per.00054.010

The Dalliance of the Eagles.1

BY WALT WHITMAN. SKIRTING the river road, (my languid forenoon walk, my rest,) Skyward, in air, a sudden muffled sound—the dalliance of the 
  eagles, The rushing amorous contact high in space together, The clinching, interlocking claws—a living, fierce, gyrating 
  wheel, Four beating wings—two beaks—A swirling mass, tight 
  grappling, In tumbling, turning, clustering loops, straight downward 
  falling, Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull, A motionless, still balance in the air—then parting, talons 
  loosing, Upward again, on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate, 
  diverse flight, She hers, he his, pursuing.

Notes

1. Revised slightly for inclusion in "By the Roadside," Leaves of Grass (1881–82). [back]

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