Plans are made in this poem, and the weather quietly ruins them. Someone says there will be time to follow a goat-herd into the mountains and dance to a shepherd's music. It sounds like a promise of a lively, open-air day. But the rain arrives, and the short lines hammer it home: "strong / insistent / and long." There is no escaping it.
So the speaker and a companion end up lying together on the hay, heads wet, with nothing grand to mark the moment. The last line is the quiet turn: they have "only a song / for passion." That "only" can sound like a small disappointment, since the mountain dance never happened. Yet the tone feels more tender than bitter. The speaker seems to accept the change of plan and finds a modest, intimate closeness in its place.
The mood is soft, wistful and a little rueful, like remembering a day that went differently than hoped, but not badly. The title, "Actopan," suggests a specific place, though the poem itself gives us little more to go on.