The poem is a lament for a dead woman named Ginevra. A speaker, perhaps a lover or a close friend, refuses to share in the joy of the arriving spring. Old winter retreats and the landscape begins to stir with life—sunlight pushes back the night—but the speaker can’t celebrate. “We did not rejoice in thee, Ginevra!” rings out as the bitter reason: her absence cancels out the season’s renewal.
The focus then shifts to her body, laid out on what was supposed to be a bridal couch but has become a deathbed. The speaker traces a grim path: from that bed to the funeral bier, then to the charnel house, and finally to a question that hangs with dread—“oh where?” The imagery turns disturbingly physical, picturing rats nesting in her heart and worms in her golden hair while the sun’s spirit sits indifferent on its throne. The mood is one of intimate, almost macabre grief, mingling tenderness for the lost young woman with a stark acceptance of bodily decay.