The Eagle (a fragment) -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(Poem #15) The Eagle (a fragment) He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

For sheer concentrated imagery this poem is hard to beat - I especially like
lines 2 and 3. Tennyson is reported to have said that while people have
written better poetry than he has, no one has written poetry that *sounds*
better, and I'm inclined to agree with him - for other lovely examples, read
'The Brook', 'Break, break, break' and 'The Lady of Shallott'. (The latter
two may be found online at
<http://library.utoronto.ca/www/utel/rp/authors/tennyson.html#poems> ; if
anyone knows where to find an online copy of the former do let me know.)

I have, incidentally, seen at least one version in which line 1 reads
'hooked hands', suggesting that Tennyson revised the poem at some time.
'Crooked' is by far the more accepted version, though.

Biographical Notes:

 Relevant extracts from
 <[broken link] http://mirrors.org.sg/victorian/tennyson/tennybio.html>

  Since Tennyson was always sensitive to criticism, the mixed reception of his
  1832 Poems hurt him greatly. Critics in those days delighted in the
  harshness of their reviews: the Quarterly Review was known as the "Hang,
  draw, and quarterly." John Wilson Croker's harsh criticisms of some of the
  poems in our anthology kept Tennyson from publishing again for another nine
  years.
  [...]
  The success of his 1842 Poems made Tennyson a popular poet, and in 1845 he
  received a Civil List (government) pension of £200 a year, which helped
  relieve his financial difficulties; the success of "The Princess" and In
  Memoriam and his appointment in 1850 as Poet Laureate finally established
  him as the most popular poet of the Victorian era.

  By now Tennyson, only 41, had written some of his greatest poetry, but he
  continued to write and to gain in popularity.

  [Prince Albert's] admiration for Tennyson's poetry helped solidify his
  position as the national poet, and Tennyson returned the favor by dedicating
  "The Idylls of the King" to his memory. Queen Victoria later summoned him to
  court several times, and at her insistence he accepted his title, having
  declined it when offered by both Disraeli and Gladstone.
  [...]
  Tennyson suffered from extreme short-sightedness--without a monocle he could
  not even see to eat--which gave him considerable difficulty writing and
  reading, and this disability in part accounts for his manner of creating
  poetry: Tennyson composed much of his poetry in his head, occasionally
  working on individual poems for many years. During his undergraduate days at
  Cambridge he often did not bother to write down his compositions, although
  the Apostles continually prodded him to do so. (We owe the first version of
  "The Lotos-Eaters" to Arthur Hallam, who transcribed it while Tennyson
  declaimed it at a meeting of the Apostles.)

Criticism:

   We still look to the earlier masters for supreme excellence in particular
   directions: to Wordsworth for sublime philosophy, to Coleridge for ethereal
   magic, to Byron for passion, to Shelley for lyric intensity, to Keats for
   richness. Tennyson does not excel each of these in his own special field,
   but he is often nearer to the particular man in his particular mastery than
   anyone else can be said to be, and he has in addition his own special field
   of supremacy. What this is cannot be easily defined; it consists, perhaps,
   in the beauty of the atmosphere which Tennyson contrives to cast around his
   work, molding it in the blue mystery of twilight, in the opaline haze of
   sunset: this atmosphere, suffused over his poetry with inestimable skill
   and with a tact rarely at fault, produces an almost unfailing illusion or
   mirage of loveliness.

   -- Edmond Gosse, "Tennyson," in the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia
   Britannica

Martin