The speaker comes across a faded flower someone plucked carelessly, inhaled its scent for a moment, and then tossed aside to wither. He reflects that if he had seen the blossom fresh with evening dew, he would never have broken its stem—he would have left it blushing among the living green. Now he bends over the wilted remains and weeps. In his grief, imagination guides him to the grave of Abra, a lovely wanderer whose story echoes the flower’s fate. She too was briefly savored by a selfish love that tasted her youthful sweetness and then destroyed her. The dead bloom becomes a quiet emblem of that loss.
The mood is tender and mournful, steeped in regret for fragile beauty thoughtlessly ruined. The speaker’s sorrow feels personal—mingled sympathy for the discarded flower and for Abra, both victims of a fleeting, careless joy. There’s a gentle ache in the realisation that what once bloomed with modest charm is now beyond saving.