The Taming of the Falcon

The bird sits spelled upon the lithe brown wrist

Of yonder turbaned fowler, who had lamed

No feather limb, but the winged spirit tamed

With his compelling eye. He need not trust

The silken coil, not set the thick-limed snare;

He lures the wanderer with his steadfast gaze,

It shrinks, it quails, it trembles yet obeys.

And, lo! he has enslaved the thing of air.

The fixed, insistent human will is lord

Of all the earth;--but in the awful sky

Reigns absolute, unreached by deed or word

Above creation; through eternity,

Outshining the sun's shield, the lightening's sword,

The might of Allah's unaverted eye.