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Lowell, James Russell - I know a falcon swift and peerless
Identifier
007070
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Poems of James Russell Lowell
I know a falcon swift and peerless
As e’er was cradled in the pine
No bird had ever eye so fearless
Or wings so strong as this of mine
The winds not better love to pilot
A cloud with molten gold o’errun
Than him, a little burning islet
A star above the coming sun
For with a lark’s heart he doth tower
By a glorious upward instinct drawn
No bee nestles deeper in the flower
Than he in the bursting rose of dawn
No harmless dove, no bird that singeth
Shudders to see him overhead
The rush of his fierce swooping bringeth
To innocent hearts no thrill of dread
Let fraud and wrong and baseness shiver
For still between them and the sky
The falcon Truth hangs poised forever
And marks them with his vengeful eye