Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Dunolly Castle

On Revisiting Dunolly Castle

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

THE CAPTIVE bird was gone;—to cliff or moor

Perchance had flown, delivered by the storm;

Or he had pined, and sunk to feed the worm:

Him found we not; but, climbing a tall tower,

There saw, impaved with rude fidelity

Of art mosaic, in a roofless floor,

An eagle with stretched wings, but beamless eye,—

An eagle that could neither wail nor soar.

Effigy of the vanished, (shall I dare

To call thee so?) or symbol of fierce deeds

And of the towering courage which past times

Rejoiced in, take, whate’er thou be, a share,

Not undeserved, of the memorial rhymes

That animate my way where’er it leads!