In these lines, the speaker drifts between sleep and waking, envisioning his beloved as something between a memory and a vision. Her lips become a bower where the most carefree birds sing, and her words take on a melody born from that very mouth. But then a shift: her eyes, once treasured in his heart’s heaven, now cast a desolate light on his funeral-like thoughts, starlight falling on a pall. The contrast is sharp—she is both a source of life and a reminder of deathly sorrow. He wakes with a sigh, only to return to dreaming of a truth that wealth can never touch. His cry of “thy heart!” rings with longing: true love is priceless, gold can only buy baubles. He longs for something beyond material wealth—a devotion that has no earthly price. The mood is hushed and reverent, hovering between rapture and mourning, as if the speaker clings to a love that exists only in dreams.
To---- — Summary
The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds,
Are lips--and all thy melody Of lip-begotten words--
Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined Then desolately fall, O God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall--
Thy heart--thy heart!--I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of the truth that gold can never buy-- Of the baubles that it may.