Jonson’s speaker says goodnight to a world he calls false, quitting it from his thoughts as if he’s walked off its stage. He insists he fears nothing from it, since the world can’t show more hatred than it already has. In bitterness, he recounts how his innocent youth was abused and betrayed, how the world planted him in a corrupt society where rumor passes for truth, freedom is crushed, and goodness is punished. The mood is one of deep disappointment and scorn.
But the poem then turns inward. Accepting that all humans are born to suffer age, sickness, and grief, the speaker resolves not to complain or expect miracles. He will bear life’s blows with a scorn that needs no false comfort. Instead of wandering for peace, he builds it within his own bosom, at home. The closing lines shift from bitterness to a quiet, self-reliant defiance.