OK, I know it is a kinglet thread, but I wasn't the one who brought up hawks. HDT has this entry for Dec 20 in 1851:
Sat. 20th 2 Pm to Fair Haven Hill & plain below-- Saw a large hawk circling over a pine wood below me--and screaming apparently that he might discover his prey by their flight-- Travelling ever by wider circles What a symbol of the thoughts now soaring now descending--taking larger and larger circles or smaller and smaller-- It flies not directly whither it is bound but advances by circles like a courtier of the skies No such noble progress-- how it comes round as with a wider sweep of thought-- But the majesty is in the imagination of the beholder for the bird is intent on its prey. Circling & ever circling you cannot divine which way it will incline--till perchance it dives down straight as an arrow to its mark. It rises higher above where I stand and I see with beautiful distinctness its wings against the sky-- primaries & secondaries and the rich tracery of the outline of the latter? its inner wings within the outer--like a great moth seen against the sky. A Will-o-'the wind. Following its path as it were through the vortices of the air. the poetry of motion-- not as preferring one place to another but enjoying each as long as possible. Most gracefully so surveys new scenes & revisits the old. As if that hawk were made to be the symbol of my thought how bravely he came round over those parts of the wood which he had not surveyed--taking in a new segment.-- annexing new territories Without heave yo! it trims its sail,-- It goes about without the creaking of a block-- That America Yacht of the air that never makes a tack--though it rounds the globe itself--takes in and shakes out its reefs without a flutter.-- its sky scrapers all under its control-- Holds up one wing as if to admire--and sweeps off this way then holds up the other & sweeps that. If there are two concentrically circling, it is such a regatta as South hampton waters never witnessed. Flights of imagination--Coleridgean thoughts. So a man is said to soar in his thought-- Ever to fresh woods & pastures new. Rises as in thought -------------------------------- If HDT had been able to take a picture of it, would he have bothered to/been able to write this entry? Or if he had been able to post this entry for others to see an hour after he wrote it, what then? ...Ever to fresh woods & pastures new.
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timeasmymeasure
Hawks
Date: 2006-12-20 10:18 am (UTC)Sat. 20th
2 Pm to Fair Haven Hill & plain below-- Saw a large hawk circling over a pine wood below me--and screaming apparently that he might discover his prey by their flight-- Travelling ever by wider circles What a symbol of the thoughts now soaring now descending--taking larger and larger circles or smaller and smaller-- It flies not directly whither it is bound but advances by circles like a courtier of the skies No such noble progress-- how it comes round as with a wider sweep of thought-- But the majesty is in the imagination of the beholder for the bird is intent on its prey. Circling & ever circling you cannot divine which way it will incline--till perchance it dives down straight as an arrow to its mark. It rises higher above where I stand and I see with beautiful distinctness its wings against the sky-- primaries & secondaries and the rich tracery of the outline of the latter? its inner wings within the outer--like a great moth seen against the sky. A Will-o-'the wind. Following its path as it were through the vortices of the air. the poetry of motion-- not as preferring one place to another but enjoying each as long as possible. Most gracefully so surveys new scenes & revisits the old. As if that hawk were made to be the symbol of my thought how bravely he came round over those parts of the wood which he had not surveyed--taking in a new segment.-- annexing new territories
Without heave yo! it trims its sail,-- It goes about without the creaking of a block-- That America Yacht of the air that never makes a tack--though it rounds the globe itself--takes in and shakes out its reefs without a flutter.-- its sky scrapers all under its control-- Holds up one wing as if to admire--and sweeps off this way then holds up the other & sweeps that. If there are two concentrically circling, it is such a regatta as South hampton waters never witnessed.
Flights of imagination--Coleridgean thoughts. So a man is said to soar in his thought-- Ever to fresh woods & pastures new. Rises as in thought
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If HDT had been able to take a picture of it, would he have bothered to/been able to write this entry? Or if he had been able to post this entry for others to see an hour after he wrote it, what then? ...Ever to fresh woods & pastures new.
Dwight