On an autumn evening, a wide haze spreads through the air and makes the new moon look blurred and unfamiliar. The speaker realizes that all this haze is just smoke rising from a single poor house, with one chimney, whose inhabitants stay so hidden indoors that no one has even come out for evening chores. He guesses the inmates may be lonely women, and he wants to tell them something: in keeping to themselves so completely, they are like creatures spinning a cocoon. Their quiet, smoky world is anchored to earth and moon, and no winter gale can blow it away. The mood is hushed and a little melancholy, but also protective and oddly admiring—the speaker sees isolation not only as loneliness but as a fragile kind of shelter, made by people who may not even realize they are creating it.
The Cocoon — Summary
As far as I can see this autumn haze That spreading in the evening air both ways, Makes the new moon look anything but new, And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue, Is all the smoke from one poor house alone With but one chimney it can call its own; So close it will not light an early light, Keeping its life so close and out of sight No one for hours has set a foot outdoors So much as to take care of evening chores. The inmates may be lonely women-folk. I want to tell them that with all this smoke They prudently are spinning their cocoon And anchoring it to an earth and moon From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,-- Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it.