HAT is that, mother?” “The eagle, boy,
Proudly careering his course with joy,
Firm on his own mountain vigor relying,
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying;
His wing on the wind, and his eye on the sun,
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward, right on.
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.
Boy, may the eagle's flight ever be thine,
Onward and upward, and true to the line.”