A short, quiet poem about a meeting that ends in a parting. The speaker talks with a master joiner, a skilled woodworker, and the two of them agree on the "many pretty pleasures" of living in a glass house. The phrase echoes the old saying about people in glass houses not throwing stones, so the agreement feels a little knowing: pleasure and fragility, openness and exposure, seem to go together.
Then the tone shifts. The joiner, we learn, is "married to drink," which suggests that his real commitment is to alcohol rather than to people or even to his craft. The speaker doesn't argue or lecture. They simply part, and the speaker goes home "to my paper bed."
That last image is thin and delicate, set against the joiner's solid trade. It suggests loneliness or vulnerability, perhaps a life as breakable as a glass house. The mood is wry, resigned, and gently sad, with the sadness left mostly unspoken.