When the stars vanish at dawn, the speaker feels a sharp, personal grief. Throughout the night, their “glorious eyes” gazed into hers, and she blessed that watchful presence. She felt utterly at peace, drinking in their cool radiance as if it were life itself. Her mind roamed freely under their influence, and she felt at one with the boundless night.
Morning breaks this spell with a violence that stuns her. The sun isn’t gentle—it’s “blood-red” and arrow-straight, scorching her cheek and draining the world of comfort. The daylight world becomes an assault of noise and glare: loud birds, rattling winds, imprisoned flies. She turns to her pillow, trying to call back the darkness and feel the stars’ solemn light throb with her heart, but the brightness seeps through everything. The whole poem aches with a longing to return to the healing dark. The stars offer a tender, dreamy intimacy that the sun destroys, so she begs for night to hide her from a light that burns but never warms.