A speaker feels their body and the world closing in at once. The poem opens with a plain, frightening statement: "My vision is going." Then the senses seem to blur together, and what the speaker hears isn't a sound so much as a taste or a chill: a "devilish tongue," "cold as a tumor," like "vinegar boiled till thick." These images are sour, bitter and sickly, and they make winter feel less like weather and more like a threatening presence, maybe even an illness.
The ending is quiet and almost flat. The speaker simply puts on a coat and won't take it off until spring. That small action reads as resignation, or as stubborn endurance. The mood is bleak and tense, but also oddly calm. Judging by the imagery, the poem may be about aging or sickness as much as the season, with winter standing in for fading strength and the long wait to come through it.