Title: The dalliance of the eagles
Creator: Walt Whitman
Date: Late 1870s or 1880
Whitman Archive ID: uva.00092
Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This manuscript is a draft of "The Dalliance of the Eagles," a poem first published in Cope's Tobacco Plant in November 1880. The manuscript was likely written in the late 1870s or in 1880.
Contributors to digital file: Nicole Gray, Andy Jewell, Kenneth Price, Brett Barney, Nick Krauter, and Stephen Boykewich
The dalliance of the eagles
In [full?] clear sight, high in the ample space
? I see The rushing contact
amp amorous contact
of the eagles
(The twain—the male and female)
The interlocking claws, Tthe spreading wings,
The spiral cutting the air together
By locking talons held—one mass reliev'd against the sky
Swift
^Four wings, gigantic—two
beaks— Downward gyrating—splendid ^swift loops—
over and over falling,
rolling
turning, an
falling,
pausing
swift revolving circling, falling
Over
Abo
Close to
the river pausing—motionless ? a
minute—balanced
motionless
Then
Till
tacitly unlocking on slow majest firm
pinion, then, she hers,
[he?]
his, their separate flight pursuing