The speaker looks at a shelf and sees only the spines of the books. Those spines, the poem says, "make handsome content," as if the outside of a book could be all the reading a person needs. The next line turns this into something stranger and sadder: the books become "a body that nobody looks after." A collection that was once alive with ideas now seems neglected, like a person left alone.
The second stanza shifts from the shelf to the world outside. "Dangerous to be free" sounds like a half-worried, half-tempted thought. The speaker says they do not think but simply follow "the old gold evening," letting the light lead instead of the mind. The mood is quiet, drifting and a little wistful. There is a sense of stepping away from books and careful thinking toward something softer and more instinctive, though the poem leaves it unclear whether that feels like relief or loss.