Fletcher’s lines set up a bleak trade-off between ordinary distraction and deeper vision. The barking of small dogs sticks in memory more than starlight, while real understanding—the moonrise—only comes to those who wait and watch for a long time. But that patience has a price: the ones who see are called mad afterward. They wander with blind eyes, reduced to scavenging in the gutter like dogs, and nobody listens to what they say.
The mood is weary, nocturnal, and quietly bitter. The speaker seems to feel that insight isolates rather than rewards, turning a person into something desperate and ignored. The word “epilogue” makes it feel like a closing judgment: after everything, the visionary is left muttering in the dark while the world remembers only small, sharp noises.