The speaker urges you to avoid the crowd—the “reeking herd” and “polluted flock”—because closeness with others breeds hatred and moral stains. Instead, she offers two models of solitude. The first is the eagle, living high on an inviolate cliff, above storms, staring into the sun. If you cannot manage that fierce, lofty independence, she says, then go underground like the mole. There you can keep your soul clean by communing with roots, stones, rivers at their source, and old bones. The feeling is proud, a little severe, and intensely private. The mood is cold and clear at the top, then hushed and secret below. Either way, the poem values purity and distance over the warm, dirty closeness of society.
The Eagle and the Mole — Summary
Avoid the reeking herd, Shun the polluted flock, Live like that stoic bird, The eagle of the rock.
The huddled warmth of crowds Begets and fosters hate; He keeps, above the clouds, His cliff inviolate.
When flocks are folded warm, And herds to shelter run, He sails above the storm, He stares into the sun.
If in the eagle's track Your sinews cannot leap, Avoid the lathered pack, Turn from the steaming sheep.
If you would keep your soul From spotted sight or sound, Live like the velvet mole; Go burrow underground.
And there hold intercourse With roots of trees and stones, With rivers at their source, And disembodied bones.