The poem opens with a sweeping complaint: the world has become too small for "us," a crowd defined by its merchants and tenants, people who buy, sell and rent. The title, "Free trade," suggests this is a world where everything can be exchanged. Then the poem narrows sharply. "Our lands and all our loves" are bundled together "wrapped up in paper," as if property and affection were just parcels to be shipped.
The speaker refuses to look inside. "I would not open it to see / what gold could do" reads as a quiet act of resistance, a decision not to find out what money might make of the things that matter. That refusal costs something, a loss "I could hardly bear," yet the last lines turn toward "infinite comfort." The poem doesn't say where that comfort comes from, so readers have to decide for themselves.
The mood is hushed and wary, but not bitter. It feels like someone choosing restraint over greed, and finding some peace in it.