Ah God! is it gone Again— My rapture and Dream! Have I clutched Once more At the wing of an angel To find a bird That is seeking a nest?
And my hands They are filled With feathers and dust And my eyes With dust and tears— And my heart Is sunk in the earth.
How long Will you torture me With hopeless love And agony?
The speaker has just lost something that felt like a vision. Rapture, a dream, a sense of touching the divine, has slipped away again, and the word "again" tells us this isn't the first time. The central image is the poem's heart: he grabs at what he thinks is an angel's wing, only to find an ordinary bird, one that is simply "seeking a nest." The grandeur he imagined turns out to be small and needy, and it leaves him with nothing but feathers and dust.
The second stanza is all aftermath. Dust fills his hands, then his eyes, and the dust mixes with tears. His heart sinks "into the earth," as if the whole experience has dragged him downward, from heaven to dirt. The closing question is a raw cry, addressed to whoever or whatever keeps offering and withdrawing this hope. The mood is bitter, weary, and exposed, the exhaustion of someone who keeps believing and keeps being let down.