The Eagle
By: Lord Tennyson Alfred
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
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,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
- Meanings of words:Clasps: hold with force and power.
Crag: a high, steep stone.
Crooked: opposite of straight.
Crooked hand: with iron fingers.
Ringed: to surround it or connect things with a ring.
Azure: the blue color.
Wrinkled: lines on the skin.
Crawl: moving slowly like a baby on hands and feet.
Thunderbolt: fast, violent, powerful, and lighting with loud sound.
The poem is divided into 2 Stanza's with 3 lines each. And there are an
average of 9 feet a line. The rhyme scheme is every last word in each
stanza rhyme's.
Analysis:
Some of the imagery is with sight and sound. For sight they are “Close
to the sun”, “Azure world”, azure mean the blue color in a clear daytime
sky. “
Wrinkled sea beneath”, and “mountain walls”. The only one that was
imagery of
sight & sound was “like a thunderbolt he falls”.
The figures of speech are “wrinkled sea”, which means the waves in the
ocean. And one simile is “like a thunderbolt he falls”, it is saying how
fast a
eagle dives.
The poems theme is how an eagle can fly so high and dive so fast. And
how free an eagle is. I thought that this was a nice poem. I like the way he
uses the words. I think the rhyming scheme he used was appropriate,
where every
last word rhymed.
- Figures of speech:1-Personification:
In the first line the poet uses (he) to the eagle.
“With crooked hand” humans only have hands.
The poet also describes the sea with wrinkled, which is the description of
an old man skin.
The sea crawls as the baby’s movement.
The land described as lonely, which is a description of the human.
2-simile:
The eagle and the thunderbolt and the similarity are that both of them are
very fast.
- Paraphrase:The poem consists of two stanzas. Each stanza has three lines. The
speaker in this poem admires the eagle.
The first stanza is about the eagle’s quietness and stillness. The eagle is
very powerful from the way he stands. The words clasps, crag, and
crooked indicate the strength of the eagle. The poet uses the word clasps
instead of hold because it gives more power. The poet uses the word
clasps because it carries a lot of force and power than the word hold. The
eagle is very high on the top of the mountain as if he looks close to the
sun. He looks at the people from the top as if he is a king or a God. He is
not lonely, the land is lonely. He is part of the world and his nature. He
stands quietly with confidence.
The second stanza describes the eagle’s movement. The eagle is up and
looks down to the sea as it has tiny lines, which are the waves, as a
wrinkled skin for an old man. He sees the sea moves very slowly as a
crawling baby. We know that the mountain is his home from the word
(wall). He falls quickly as a thunderbolt when he sees something he wants
or when he sees a prey. His movement is sudden, fast, violent, and
powerful. The first stanza ends with the word (stands) and the second
stanza ends with the word (falls), these two words show the difference
between the eagle’s quietness and movement.
- Imagery:Crooked hand:
Describing the eagle’s hand makes the poem more vivid.
- The rhyme scheme:He clasps the crag with crooked hands; a
Close to the sun in lonely lands, a
Ringed with the azure world, he stands. a
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls: b
He watches from his mountain walls, b
And like a thunderbolt he falls. B