CCLXXXV Sonnet
A hundred wings are dropt as soft as one;
Now ye are lighted—lovely to my sight
The fearful circle of your gentle flight,
Rapid and mute, and drawing homeward soon:
And then the sober chiding of your tone, 5
As ye sit there from your own roofs arraigning
My trespass on your haunts, so boldly done,
Sounds like a solemn and a just complaining!
O happy, happy race! for though there clings
A feeble fear about your timid clan, 10
Yet are ye blest! with not a thought that brings
Disquietude, while proud and sorrowing man,
An eagle weary of his mighty wings,
With anxious inquest fills his little span.
Charles Tennyson.