EAGLE

From the musical JANE AND ELLEN AND MARY

“Eagle” is sung by the young Jane Addams, showing how the idealism and ambition that led to her becoming America’s foremost social work pioneer were deeply grounded in the Northern experience of the Civil War, during which she was born. Her father was an Illinois state legislator and sometime associate of Abraham Lincoln, who referred to him as “double-d” Addams. –J. Linn Allen

THERE WAS THIS EAGLE

THIS OLD LADY EAGLE

WHO MADE AS HER HOME THE WISCONSIN STATE CAPITOL

SHE’D BEEN ATTACHED TO A CIVIL WAR REGIMENT

NOW SAT QUITE TAMELY

RIGHT BY THE DOOR  

AT THE SIDE OF THE SOLDIER WHO’D KEPT HER ALIVE THROUGH THE WAR


I WENT WITH MY FATHER

TO VISIT THE CAPITOL

WHERE THE OLD SOLDIER TOLD US THAT THE EAGLE MEANT

FREEDOM AND RIGHTS THAT THE SOLDIERS HAD FOUGHT FOR   

AND THAT’S WHY THEY STAYED

SHOWING ALL WHO ARRIVED  

THAT THE WARRIOR EAGLE AND IDEALS IT STOOD FOR SURVIVED.


BUT A FEW WEEKS LATER WE READ IN THE PAPERS  

THAT THE SOLDIER HAD DIED AND THE EAGLE HAD FLOWN

AND NOBODY ACTUALLY KNEW WHERE THE EAGLE HAD GONE


FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS AFTER

I’D STARE AT THE SKY

SURE IF I LOOKED HARD ENOUGH I WOULD SEE HER FLY   

WAY UP THERE HIGH WITH HER WINGS SPREAD SO WIDE  

SHE WAS STILL STRONG AND SOARING

LIKE ALL THE IDEALS  

THAT KEPT THE MEN PROUD IN THAT TERRIBLE WAR

I NEVER DID SEE HER

BUT I KNEW SHE WAS UP THERE

AND I KNEW WHAT I’D DO

I’D FOLLOW THAT EAGLE FOREVER WHEREVER SHE FLEW.  

WHEREVER SHE FLEW.