He on the bowed neck gave the accolade.
Yet kneeled the youth bewildered, for the stroke
Seemed severance sharp of kind companionships;
And the strange pain of parting in him woke;
And as at midnight when a branch down dips
By sudden-swaying tempest roughly stirred,
Some full-fledged nested bird,
Being shaken forth, though fain of late to fly,
Now flickers with weak wing and wistful cry,—
So flickered his desires