Landor draws a brief, elegant parallel between the natural world and human emotion. He notes how smiles fade quickly, while anger can rage on; how the south wind blows fitfully, but the north wind is unwavering. Then he turns to the sky: Venus, the evening star, shifts its bright position from night to night, while the pole-star stays fixed and cold. The final line delivers the point — this is exactly how hate and love behave.
Hate is volatile, sudden, and restless, like the changing star and the gusting wind. Love, by contrast, is constant and immovable, but also something chilling, distant, perhaps even indifferent in its steadiness. The speaker doesn’t exclaim or judge; there’s a cool acceptance in the observation. The overall mood is one of quiet, almost frosty calm, as if the poet is looking up at the night sky and seeing human feeling reflected in its lights.