The poem begins with a quiet, almost casual "suppose": what if the world simply ended one evening? Instead of panic, the speaker offers a strange comparison. The end of the world is like a sweet, something small and pleasurable that the speaker already holds. That image makes catastrophe feel intimate, even tasteful, as if the ending were a treat to be savored rather than feared.
The last two stanzas turn toward a vague, shrugging kind of belief. The speaker mentions "the backwardness of I know not what god," which suggests a universe run by some upside-down logic they can't name or understand. The title, "The last shall be first," seems to echo that reversal. The poem closes on a limit: the speaker will take in the world only "as far as my eyes will give me leave." The mood is calm, wistful, and a little playful. The speaker accepts that vision is finite, and that may be the point: we can only love and see so much before the light goes.