A parent soothes a child to sleep with a gentle, magical promise. The child’s dreams will be lit by fireflies gathered “from the heart of night,” and the father has gone on a wondrous errand: to bring honey from a city of stars a hundred miles away. By dawn, he will return riding “the horses of the dews,” carrying a drum “as big as the sun.”
The speaker’s tone is tender and protective. Instead of making the father’s absence feel lonely or frightening, the poem turns it into a quiet adventure, softening the dark with light and music. The mood is hushed and full of wonder, like the drowsy space just before sleep, when the world seems both enormous and safe.