The speaker remembers southern seas and the Aegean, where purple stones reflected the waves and hills, and where Greek youths sailed with saffron-coloured sails, riding the wind like flames. Then the scene shifts to Stony Lake, a small Canadian lake with its own purple hills and pink northern rocks. There she sees a sailboat moving in the wind and a brown Canadian boy at the mast. She says he is just as splendid as his mythical Trojan counterpart.
The feeling is one of delighted recognition: a familiar northern landscape can hold the same heroic beauty as the storied Mediterranean. The mood is intimate yet elevated, as if the speaker is suddenly seeing a local boy and a small lake touched by ancient legend.