The poem moves between a startling image and a quiet confession. The first couplet is hard to pin down: a messenger rising "high and higher," yet also hanging herself with her own hand. It suggests someone carrying a message who destroys it, or themselves, in the act of delivering it. The image is both soaring and grim, as if rising and dying were happening at once.
The middle stanza softens. The speaker remembers "an hour or two of simplicity" when they felt "open and sufficient," a brief moment of being enough without effort or defense. The word "where" makes it sound like a place they once stood and can no longer reach. The ending turns firm, almost like a warning: "do not tell tales / concerning pain." The poem doesn't say whether the speaker is refusing to dramatize suffering or telling us to stay quiet about it. Either way, the mood is guarded and restrained, with grief held close to the surface.