The speaker starts out worn down by grief. Evening brings the sea, the earth, and the clover, but all he hears in them is a tired old song telling him the best is behind him. He’s sick with the thought that none of the happy moments can ever come back, and the mood is so heavy with regret that he simply wants to die.
Then he turns from the sad western sky and sees dark pines standing against the pale north. They are still, sharp, and utterly calm. Something shifts. He stops playing the part of the sorrowful lover, laughs, and no longer wishes for death. In that sudden stillness, the trees give him a peace that memory couldn’t. He’s left simply glad—not for any lost hour, but for the plain, beautiful fact of pine-trees and the sky.