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.