The Walt Whitman Archive
Published Works
Periodicals
About this Item
Title: The Dalliance of the Eagles
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: November 1880
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, and Susan Belasco
 image 1 |
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,
eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching, interlocking claws—a living, fierce, gyrating
wheel,
wheel,
Four beating wings—two beaks—A swirling mass, tight
grappling,
grappling,
In tumbling, turning, clustering loops, straight downward
falling,
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,
loosing,
Upward again, on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate,
diverse flight,
diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.