Touched by an Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Maya Angelou 

Touched by an Angel is about love. Although the overall theme of the poem is about love, each stanza has its own meaning. The first stanza is about how people are before love comes into their life. Maya Angelou characterizes people as being alone, and scared until love comes and liberates us from these traits. The second stanza describes what all comes with love when it comes into our lives. There are ups and downs with love, through all these things we have a choice to be bold and make our fears to love go away. In the last stanza the author explains what love does to us, how love changes us, and what love does for us. Love in this stanza is depicted as something that replenishes us. In general, in the poem, we are not fully happy in our lives until we've found love.
In the poem Touched by an Angel, there are not a lot of poetic devices used. There is some alliteration in the poem. The alliteration appears in the first and second stanza (“love leaves“, “high holy“, “love’s light”). There’s no specific rhyme scheme but there is some rhyming in the poem.