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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.
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Comments
The narrator is arrested and held by an experience while taking a customary midday walk along a river road. Previously, his walk brought him rest. This day he looks on as two eagles force his sense and imagination to a new pitch, where action, space, and time are all magnified in intensity to the point of revelation. We are delivered to the world of nature and the world of art at once. For Whitman it is love that the narrator metaphorically ascribes to these creatures of flight and grace---our love---because this is amorous dalliance and pursuit to us, but what to them? Surely, we will never know. They "skirt" the human road, and do not walk it as we do. Seen rightly and with human eyes, this is nothing but a revelation of what comes to us from existence and beckons us to love, and love passionately. Thanks to Whitman and the eagles to which he was able to bear witness.
Mark Brown from United States