The speaker tells her beloved that she does not love him for his bright eyes or wine-red lips, but for his soul, which holds hers in a sweet captivity. It is a love that tries to reach beyond the body.
Then the speaker turns to a later season of life. Those same eyes have lost their glow, and the lips are no longer full or vivid. Autumn is in the air, and a solitary woman passes by. The mood shifts from tender devotion to quiet loneliness and the weight of time. What remains is not a happy reunion but a somber, empty stillness, as though love outlasted beauty only to leave the woman walking alone.