The King of the Mountains

HAT is that, mother?” “The eagle, boy,
Proudly careering his course with joy,
Firm on his own mountain vigor relying,
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying;
His wing on the wind, and his eye on the sun,
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward, right on.
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world he stands;
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,
He watches from his mountain walls.
Boy, may the eagle's flight ever be thine,
Onward and upward, and true to the line.”