The Dalliance of the Eagles
by Walt Whitman
SKIRTING the river road, (my 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.
Comments by our Poetry Editor Ira Maine
Here’s Whitman out for a walk and sees a pair of eagles behaving curiously in the air. Tradition has that this is their mating ritual, where they grapple each other, breast to breast and apparently fall about the sky as impregnation takes place.
The other half-witted, spoil-sport argument suggests that what Whitman observed was simply two male birds fighting. Perhaps that is what was going on. Perhaps that is all it was. Perhaps Whitman knew that. and chose to turn a scrap into something majestic. One way or the other Whitman will be remembered when the idiot who put up the alternative argument is long forgotten. It is a marvellous poem and in no need whatever of the petty narrow-minded ravings of the mediocre.
The other half-witted, spoil-sport argument suggests that what Whitman observed was simply two male birds fighting. Perhaps that is what was going on. Perhaps that is all it was. Perhaps Whitman knew that. and chose to turn a scrap into something majestic. One way or the other Whitman will be remembered when the idiot who put up the alternative argument is long forgotten. It is a marvellous poem and in no need whatever of the petty narrow-minded ravings of the mediocre.