‘Like an eagle hovering’

Drafted in ink on f. 22^r rev. of Nbk 12 below a draft for PU (no. 195) IV 397–9, this fragment, the first term of an uncompleted simile, shows an obvious resemblance to OL (no. 322) 8–9, ‘As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, / Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey’. It is possible that the lines were drafted in anticipation of their use in OL; or S. might have intended them for, perhaps as the opening of, an independent poem, but later adapted the undeveloped fragment for OL. (The note to OL 8–9 identifies sources.) More likely still, this is a rejected draft for PU IV. Like an eagle hovering is found within a sequence of pages (15^v rev.–27^v rev.) largely occupied by drafts for Act IV, and the sevensyllable couplets of the Moon's song which extends from IV 457 to 492 would accommodate the two lines metrically. Lines 459–70 of that song are drafted on f. 17^v rev. There are similarities also to Hellas 76–7, ‘As an eagle fed with morning/ Scorns the embattled tempest's warning’. Images of an eagle in the morning sky are not infrequent elsewhere in S.’s verse; e.g. L&C (no. 143) 2911–13, WA (no. 342) 401–8; and see also Mighty Eagle, thou that soarest (no. 136). PU IV was composed between late summer and December 1819, the duet of Earth and Moon (319–502) probably being the earliest section undertaken, as Neil Fraistat argues in BSM ix, pp. lxx–lxxiii. The present fragment, written with a different pen-point and in different ink from the lines from PU IV at the top of the page, is difficult to date on MS evidence alone, but may be assigned to early autumn 1819 on the likelihood of a connection to PU IV: see MYRS vi, pp. xxxix–xlii, lii–iii.