In "The Eagle," Tennyson provides a great deal of specific imagery to allow his reader to better visualize his subject. First, he states that the subject "clasps the crag with crooked hands." A crag is a steep, rugged rock, often seen as a type of peak. This along with Tennyson's hyperbole of the eagle being "close to the sun" allow the reader to understand that the eagle is perched on high. The third line, in which the eagle is described as "[r]ing'd with the azure world," presents an image of the eagle surrounded blue sky, this further solidifying the idea that the eagle is high overhead, looking downward.

In the second stanza, Tennyson states "[t]he wrinkled sea beneath him crawls. In order to see the sea as "wrinkled," one needs a decent amount of distance from it, as waves up close tend to look more as if they are rolling. Aside from the sea, the eagle's attention is also drawn to something else, as after a short time in which [h]e watches from his mountain walls, he falls "like a thunderbolt." This suggests that the eagle is not falling so much as diving, streaking toward the earth. Although it is not stated, it can be speculated that the eagle's dive is in response to the sight of prey, as when eagles hunt they tend to move downward very quickly once prey is discovered.