Jennie E Owen's triolet follows one speaker through three stages of life: childhood, the teenage years, and adulthood. At each stage the speaker measures what she knows against what she doesn't. As a child, she couldn't see that "love" might be a nightingale held up by "a hundred pale lies," something delicate and beautiful that looks alive but is propped up by pretence. As a teen, she felt certain she knew everything, apart from the odd idea that "forever can still mean never sometimes." As an adult, she admits how much she will never understand.
The mood is wry, quietly sad, and a little resigned. The speaker doesn't rage at being deceived; she just notes it. The triolet's form helps here. Lines keep returning, so the poem circles back on itself, and the final repeated line lands like a conclusion she can't escape. The cold "frigid winged creatures" suggest love that is only decoration, pretty to look at but lifeless.