Frost turns a small domestic scene into a love story. A flower sits in a window, warm inside by the stove, while a winter wind outside notices her through the glass. By day he only passes by, but at night he comes back, sighing at the sill and rattling the sash so hard that people inside lie awake listening.
The speaker tells it with gentle humor, asking lovers to set aside their own romance and attend to this odd pair. The wind is cold and used to ice, dead weeds and lonely birds, so he hardly seems made for love. Yet he tries. The poem suggests she is tempted, or he thinks so, but she simply leans away and says nothing. By morning he is a hundred miles off. The mood is tender, playful and a little sad: a courtship that never quite happens, shaped by the gap between wild freedom and cozy shelter.