The speaker addresses a young woman—likely named Mary—who is visibly wrecked by loss, her eyes “haggard” with weeping. He urges her to stop struggling against sorrow and instead find a fierce steadiness in herself, born from the very ruin she feels. There is a quiet admiration here: he tells her that the glow which refuses to hide its pain is more beautiful than any untouched morning light.
He acknowledges the cold shock of being cut off from happiness, but immediately offers a gentle, almost desperate hope—that she can dream of reunion in Heaven, never to part again. The speaker’s own longing spills out: he would gladly trade his whole existence for a dream like hers, even welcoming death as a “martyr” to a love that asks no blood, only heartbreak. Her withered hand and ashen face look like treasures to him because they prove she holds something so precious it can shatter her. The mood is both intimate and sorrowful, mixing raw pity with a strange reverence for the depth of her grief.