The speaker faces a pile of undifferentiated days ahead, each one needing to be separated and endured. There is no escape or postponement; life feels like a monk counting tasteless beads, an endless task that never finishes. This present monotony is heavy and gray.
That flatness sharpens the memory of a time when days rushed with fire and pleasure, when the speaker drank desire like wine and felt fully alive. Those vivid days are gone because the speaker threw the cup away too soon, not realizing what was being lost. The mood is weary, rueful, and quietly self-accusing: the title calls the speaker a blockhead, someone who ruined a gift through haste and ignorance.