The speaker rummages through memory as if it were a dusty attic and pulls out an old desire, rescuing it from darkness to warm beside his small fire. That night, a gentle voice seems to sing of the place where his loved ones or deepest affections live, lasting until dawn leans in and the last star disappears. The moment feels tender and otherworldly, as if memory briefly comes alive.
Yet in the final stanza, that vividness is gone. When he is alone and tries to revisit the desire, he hears no singing voice, and the fire has fallen into ruins. The poem is quietly mournful: it captures how a remembered hope can glow warmly for a moment, then fade into silence and ash, leaving only the ache of what cannot be recovered.