The Eagle

[Dark Muse]

I love the work of Tennyson, and I find this poem to be particularly striking. For so few lines, it has a great deal of depth to it, and carries a lot of weight.

I find it to be an extremely moving poem. Upon reading it my immediate impulse was that the poem was about death, and I find that last line has a great deal of impact and strikes right into the heart.

But there are certainly other ways in which the poem can be read, and it is vague, and offers multitudes of possibility.

I am curious to see what others make of this poem.

The Eagle

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.

[L.M. The Third]

I'd never thought of reading deep meanings into this poem, although I certainly love it. But your interpretation is plausible in light of how deeply Tennyson was effected by his friend's death. I totally agree about the power of that last line. It will be interesting to hear others' thoughts.

[Wilde woman]

I too have been struck by the quiet majesty of this poem. The eagle is described in almost divine terms and when he "falls", I imagine it's as if a god (Jove?) is descending towards earth.