The Eagle (Job 12:7-10)

First published in 1851, The Eagle is a favorite here in the Stout house. Alfred Tennyson wrote this poem during what has been called the “Romanticism” period of English literature which was a reaction against the “Enlightenment.”

The enlightenment saw human reason as supreme while the romantics favored human emotion as supreme. As Christians we reject both and recognize that God is supreme over reason and emotion.

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.

This poem is a short and powerfully worded masterpiece which is made all the more glorious when read in light of Job 12:7-10 which says explicitly that the hand of the Lord holds everything found in creation including both the reason and the emotions of man.

Job 12:7-10

“But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you;And the birds of the air, and they will tell you;

Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you;And the fish of the sea will explain to you.