Under wide driven wings of cloud, and under
The unseen heavy-beating wings of thunder
Are wings of birds,
Now tossed like blowing leaves on a windy plain,
Now held suspended a moment, immobile; again
Like a rush of words
From a throat constricted no longer, like arrows flashing
Under the spears of lightning falling and crashing
On clouded shields…
I watch them go, and would not keep them from going—
At last alone with the sound of a great wind blowing
Over the fields.
I have known wings in a cage, I have seen them beating
At things more cruel than wind with distance meeting
Along the sky.
I have known wings that were brooding, aching, under
A still dark thing that shook them more than thunder—
No more to fly.
And the thing we would keep is not the same in its prison
As when we saw the flash of its wings, arisen…
Its nearness yields
More emptiness than is left by the wild wings going—
Though I stand alone with the sound of a great wind blowing
Over the fields.