On a stormy night, the speaker sits awake and takes in everything around him: rain on the tin roof, branches cracking, a coconut thudding down like a cannonball, frogs, wind. Water leaks through the tiles and a puddle creeps across the floor "like a serpent." His mind goes quiet, and in that stillness he watches his two dogs, Sancho and Sally, sleeping on an old quilt. The memory of his parents, who are gone, seems to arrive with the cold wind.
From there the poem turns inward. He pictures his own death: the mourners, the lamps and incense, people chatting or trying to look important. What he worries about most is his dogs, probably shut away in a room while others gather. The ending is the poem's quiet point. Dying itself doesn't trouble him as much as the sorrow he would leave behind for those who loved him. The mood is gloomy and reflective, but tender rather than frightened.