The speaker remembers a winter when she and her beloved stayed close through storms and bitter weather, their hands clasped despite hardship. That difficult season made them inseparable. But when spring arrives with roses and birdsong, everything changes. The beloved turns eagerly toward the world’s beauty and pleasure, no longer caring whether the speaker comes or goes. Warmth and ease, strangely, bring distance instead of closeness.
The mood is quiet and mournful. The speaker is not openly angry so much as hurt and bewildered: the person who once clung to her in bleak December now cannot remember that intimacy. Winter stands for the closeness hardship can create, while spring represents distraction and forgetfulness. The central feeling is a bittersweet realization that some love only lasts while times are hard.