Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;

Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,

Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,

Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771): Ode to Independence.

But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,

Leaving no tract behind.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Timon of Athens. Act i. Sc. 1.

The Eagle, he was lord above,

And Rob was lord below.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Rob Roy's Grave.

If you have writ your annals true, 't is there

That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I

Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli:

Alone I did it. Boy!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Coriolanus. Act v. Sc. 6.

Like a young eagle who has lent his plume

To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,

See their own feathers pluck'd to wing the dart

Which rank corruption destines for their heart.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Corruption.

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,

And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 826.

So in the Libyan fable it is told

That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,

Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,

"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,

Are we now smitten."

Aeschylus (525-456 b c): Frag. 135 (trans. by Plumptre).

The eagle suffers little birds to sing.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Titus Andronicus. Act iv. Sc. 4.