A beautiful but very sad poem expressing the sweetness and sorrow of remembering past time and dead friends. The speaker wept what he called the useless tears, for he himself did not understand their true meanings and implications. Yet he believed that they came from the depths of his heart and the despair which was beautiful and noble. They rose up from the bottom of the heart and gathered in his eyes in looking at the fields rich with crops at the harvest season. But Autumn suggests sadness and death, because it comes at the end of Summer and soon the leaves would fall. He spent his time thinking of the past days that are no more.
As fresh as the first sun beam that hits the glitterring sail of a ship in the early dawn, brings up the fresh memories of his friends from the underworld; the world beyond and under the horizon and the world of the dead, as in classical legends. When we remember our dead friends they 'sail up' into our minds, but they sink because we know that they can never really return. As sad as the last moment of the sunset where the heat of the sun is weakened and becomes red in colour. It sinks down below the horizon and the blanket of darkness covers the whole sky. So fresh are the memories of the past days that are no more.
As sad and as strange as the dark early dawns of Summer to wake up and hear the earliest songs of the half awakened birds, when the light at the windows appears unto the dying ears and dying eyes of a weakened man on the verge of death. The poet her imagines a dying man seeing the light of dawn and hearing the first birds in the beautiful season of Summer. He will never hear the full song nor see the full daylight, nor will past days ever return.
The past time is compared to the memory of kissing those who are now dead, or the imagination of kissing those whom we love but who do not love us. Sad memories make life as sad as death, because they remind us of dead days and dead people.