She gripped the poet to her breast,
And ever upward soaring,
Earth seemed a new-moon in the West,
And then one light among the rest
Where squadrons lie at mooring.
21.
How know I to what o'er-world seat
The eagle bent her courses?
The waves that seem its base to beat,
The gales that round it weave and fleet,
Are life's creative forces.
22.
Here was the bird's primeval nest,
High on a promontory
Star-pharosed, where she takes her rest,
And broods new æons 'neath her breast,
The future's unfledged glory.
23.
I knew not how, but I was there,
All feeling, hearing, seeing;
It was not wind that stirred my hair,
But living breath, the essence rare
Of unembodied being.
24.
And in the nest an egg of gold
Lay wrapt in its own lustre,
Gazing whereon, what depths untold
Within, what wonders manifold
Seemed silently to muster!
25.