He does not know the meaning of magnificent
It’s July, and that means another trip to see how Independence Day is celebrated in other states. Every year, Christina and I celebrate in a different state, and this year it’s North Carolina’s turn. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the “Dueling Dinosaurs” fossil at the museum in Raleigh—the best dinosaur fossil ever unearthed, newly on display!
Talking about the Declaration of Independence with Armstrong & Getty
A few days ago I had the opportunity to talk with Joe Getty of the Armstrong and Getty show about the meaning of the Declaration of Independence—and about my forthcoming book on the subject. If you missed it, you can listen here.
Kelo at twenty
It’s been 20 years since the infamous eminent domain decision in Kelo v. New London, and a few days ago I had the honor of participating in a Federalist Society online discussion about the ruling and its constitutional implications. You can watch here.
And although I didn’t mention my own writings on the subject, if you’re interested in learning more about Kelo, you can check out Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st-Century America, or my law review articles, including this one on state responses to it, and this one on the political-philosophical background that led to such a terrible Supreme Court ruling.
Eagle Plain
In time for Independence Day, I thought I’d take a moment to look at my favorite patriotic poem, “Eagle Plain,” by Robert Francis. It’s not a well-known work, and is never recited at July 4 celebrations, but I have never encountered a poem that more perfectly expresses my own personal vision of America—and not just the constitutional order of America, but the broader conception of the New World in all its splendor, promise, and evanescent beauty.
Francis was a prolific poet but he never attained the fame of his good friend, Robert Frost, who said of him, “of all the great neglected poets, [Francis is] the greatest.” That’s an exaggeration, because Francis wrote a lot of duds, but “Eagle Plain” is not only a superbly successful poem, it’s a masterpiece of gentle, plainspoken elegy and insight. Here’s the poem:
The American eagle is not aware he is the American eagle. He is never tempted to look modest. When orators advertise the American eagle’s virtues, the American eagle is not listening. This is his virtue. He is somewhere else, he is mountains away but even if he were near he would never make an audience. The American eagle never says he will serve if drafted, will dutifully serve etc. He is not at our service. If we have honored him we have honored one who unequivocally honors himself by overlooking us. He does not know the meaning of magnificent. Perhaps we do not altogether either who cannot touch him.
I’ve never met a poem that so perfectly captures the sense of nobility that not only exceeds our capacity to praise it but also any concern for praise. Aristotle’s “megalopsychos” is probably the closest here to what Francis is capturing: someone whose excellence is so beyond reach that it’s vaguely embarrassing even to acknowledge it—and, indeed, the eagle would diminish himself to concern himself with our praise. Aristotle writes that pride is
a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character…. At honors that are great and conferred by good men he will be moderately pleased, thinking that he is coming by his own or even less than his own; for there can be no honor that is worthy of perfect virtue, yet he will at any rate accept it since they have nothing greater to bestow on him; but honor from casual people and on trifling grounds he will utterly despise, since it is not this that he deserves…. [He] will be neither over-joyed by good fortune nor over-pained by evil. For not even towards honor does he bear himself as if it were a very great thing…. Hence proud men are thought to be disdainful.
Francis’s eagle bears this sort of aristocratic virtue, and since he is an animal, it seems right to say that he represents the “natural aristocracy”—a phrase Jefferson and Adams used in their correspondence to describe the finest citizens they hoped would arise in America.
Nietzsche, too, describes the “Noble Soul,” or the soul who “has turned out well,” writing in Ecce Homo that such a person
has a taste only for what is good for him; his pleasure, his delight cease where the measure of what is good for him is transgressed…. Instinctively, he collects from everything he sees, hears, lives through, his sum: he is a principle of selection, he discards much. He is always in his own company…. He honors by choosing, by admitting, by trusting. He reacts slowly to all kinds of stimuli, with that slowness which long caution and deliberate pride have bred in him…. He comes to terms with himself, with others: he knows how to forget — he is strong enough; hence everything must turn out for his best.
Francis tells us that the eagle is not like our chest-thumping politicians, who are always “tempted / to look modest” and who are always saying things about being willing to “dutifully serve.” The pinprick of sarcasm in Francis’s “etc.”—which doesn’t even bother with commas—hits the perfect tone, as does his ironic acknowledgment that those who try to “look modest” are really relishing the praise they purport to deny. The eagle’s spotless pride is such that he is "not listening” to such things; they would strike him as unseemly, even vulgar. But his is not a boastful pride, because the eagle is supremely self-reliant—he is “not at our service.” It’s as simple as that. He is self-contained. It’s not a pose; not even a studied gentility. It’s simply his nature that he is a good and natural and free and strong being—he “does not know the meaning of magnificent.” It follows, of course, that not only would he not be at our service, but he would never imagine expecting us to serve him: he “overlook[s]” us.
Actually, my favorite part of the poem is that punning “overlooks.” The eagle overlooks us in the sense that when he soars, he looks down and sees us. But he does not look down on us, because his pride is such that he just naturally—and perhaps even naively—assumes we are his equals in this regard. He asks nothing of us, because his type of benevolence is that he naturally assumes we are all just as magnificent as he. Thus he overlooks us. He doesn’t live in our opinions, pro or con.
When Francis says that it wouldn’t occur to the eagle to “make an audience,” he seems to be deliberately alluding to T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock,” who confesses that he’s not any kind of grand character but only “an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress….” Francis’s eagle is the opposite of Eliot’s anxiety-paralyzed Prufrock. He would never be interested in swelling a progress. But he also wouldn’t accept an audience, in the sense in which kings or popes “grant” audiences. Francis’s eagle will not yield to authority, of course, but he also would not want to exercise authority. As Lincoln put it, he would not be a slave, so he would be a master. Why? Because it is second nature—no, first nature—to him to regard such things as sordid.
The Lincoln reference seems apt, because the poem’s sparseness parallels that of the Gettysburg Address, which is also ten sentences long. The power of Lincoln’s laconic speech lies precisely in its succinct and unconcealed appeal to American principle, and Francis’s poem does the same: Francis is telling us that in a larger sense, we cannot consecrate, and we cannot hallow the eagle, because he already hallows all that he overlooks far beyond our poor power to add or detract, and he does this simply by being the magnificent thing that he is.
Francis’s eagle lives magnificently, without concerning himself even with the meaning of that magnificence. He is not vain, because he feels no need to be—and we, who in fact are beneath him, cannot even touch him. And we prove our own shortfall by even wishing to praise him—by even wishing to be the very audience that the eagle will not make. We look up, at his grandeur—and yet he does not want that; he does not ask for our praise—he merely expects us to soar on our own, too.
It's an extremely simple poem: no big words; ten sentences with an effortless flow. There’s a metrical pulse behind the lines, but nothing sharp enough to jump out. (“HE is SOMEwhere ELSE. HE is MOUNtains aWAY”.) Most of the metrical work is actually done by the line-breaks. The break before “This is his virtue” or “who cannot touch him” create the subtle drama here. Anything stronger would distract from the cool sublimity Francis is describing.
It's a projection, of course—and a projection of a particular kind; it’s a kind of “noble savage” poem, and one could easily imagine, if this poem had been written a fifty or a hundred years earlier, that it might be about a Native American. One can imagine a poet simply capitalizing the word “eagle” and making it the name of an Indian chief. Romanticization of Native Americans is itself a centuries-old American tradition, and it seems to inform this poem, which connects all our aspirations and respect for this land and its possibilities with the real environment of the western hemisphere.
Gravity
I leave you this month with the marvelous “Gravity” by Alison Krauss and Union Station—whom I’m looking forward to seeing in Phoenix next week. Just love the lyrics to this song.