Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79. | | | | Rhine, the River | | A Thought from the Rhine | | Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) |
| | | I HEARD an eagle crying all alone | |
| Above the vineyards through the summer night, | |
| Among the skeletons of robber towers,— | |
| The iron homes of iron-hearted lords, | |
| Now crumbling back to ruin year by year,— | 5 |
| Because the ancient eyry of his race | |
| Is trenched and walled by busy-handed men, | |
| And all his forest-chace and woodland wild, | |
| Wherefrom he fed his young with hare and roe, | |
| Are trim with grapes, which swell from hour to hour | 10 |
| And toss their golden tendrils to the sun | |
| For joy at their own riches: so, I thought, | |
| The great devourers of the earth shall sit, | |
| Idle and impotent, they know not why, | |
| Down-staring from their barren height of state | 15 |
| On nations grown too wise to slay and slave, | |
| The puppets of the few, while peaceful love | |
| And fellow-help make glad the heart of earth, | |
| With wonders which they fear and hate, as he | |
| The eagle hates the vineyard slopes below. | 20 | | | |
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