This is a short, strange scene that moves from a pleasant evening to a small, oddly comic hunt. It opens with music: "several lush lutes" arrive after dinner, and the soft, repeated "l" sounds make the opening feel warm and unhurried. Then the speaker says that while "we were at play," his wife went hunting. The word "play" could mean music, games, or something more private, and the poem doesn't say which.
What she hunts turns out to be small. She brings her bow to the hole of a "fleet rat" at the bottom of a bed. The bow seems far too grand for such a target, and that mismatch gives the poem its dry humor. It's also unclear whether the bow is a weapon or a musical bow, which fits the lutes earlier.
The speaker's feelings stay hidden. He sounds amused and a little detached, simply reporting what happened. The mood is playful, quick, and slightly uneasy, as if something small has disturbed a cozy home.