The speaker opens with a blunt confession: "I hate haste." What follows is a small argument for slowing down. Once everything stops, the speaker can see "where to stand," as if movement had been hiding the question of where they actually belong. Stillness gives clarity, not emptiness.
Then the tone turns dry and a little mocking. "How big must be a committee / for doing nothing" jabs at organizations that look busy while accomplishing very little. The picture of "one suit with his secretary" is quick and sharp: a lone official, all status and no substance. The final line, "I did the best I could," could be read as the suit's weary excuse, or as the speaker's own quiet shrug. The poem doesn't settle which.
The mood is wry, calm, and slightly weary. It's patient with stillness and impatient with bureaucratic bustle, and its short lines and plain words make it feel like a muttered aside rather than a speech.