Meg’s Facebook post today reminded me of Tennyson’s poem. I used to use it to teach the power of poetry to kids. I had them look up dictionary definitions and encyclopedia entries about eagles and then see how much more poetry can tell. I often think of this when I’m on the river (the wrinkled sea) and I see an eagle spot a fish with his eagle eye. “Then like a thunderbolt”!

The Eagle
BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.