Very Young Love

Wishes are birds. You have been circled round
With them, invisible, I sent you in distress,
Flown from my heart that long had held them bound,
Surpassing winds in their sharp eagerness.

You have not seen their dim shades on the ground;
Nor heard them: never felt their pinions press
Beating the air, but never making sound,
And hanging over you in breathlessness.

So, with you here, the trembling little words
Lie down like frightened children in the dark,
Lie down and weep; and wishes winged like birds
Fly crowding back; with this the only mark
That I have almost told you breathless things:
You hear the weary folding-down of wings.