The speaker looks back through memory and keeps returning to Miss Loo, a woman visited for tea in a still, drowsy summer parlour. She is remembered clearly: the tabby cat, the caged bird, her green eyes widening as if startled by her own small remarks. The scene is hushed and warm—sunlight pools on the floor, the bird sings piercingly, the cat dozes. Miss Loo herself seems melancholy and absent, sighing with folded hands, her face so sad that looking at her feels almost unkind. The remembered speaker sits dull and shy. Then her cheerfulness returns, and the poem suggests she wanted nothing more than company. The mood is tender, quiet and slightly eerie, built from affection and pity.
Miss Loo — Summary
When thin-strewn memory I look through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair--her muffled words, And how she'd open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea She made some small remark to me.
It's always drowsy summer when From out the past she comes again; The westering sunshine in a pool Floats in her parlour still and cool; While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, As into piercing song it breaks; Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar.
And I am sitting, dull and shy, And she with gaze of vacancy, And large hands folded on the tray, Musing the afternoon away; Her satin bosom heaving slow With sighs that softly ebb and flow, And her plain face in such dismay, It seems unkind to look her way: Until all cheerful back will come Her cheerful gleaming spirit home: And one would think that poor Miss Loo Asked nothing else, if she had you.