The poem blends a landscape of moving water with the feeling of falling asleep. It opens with a river rushing from the mountains, tumbling over a distant edge and settling into calm pools. Then it makes its central move: "Sleep is the water." Sand fills the eyes, and the eyelids turn heavy as stone.
In the middle, the water begins to speak. Its "wet whispers" tell a story in a "dry voice," a nice contradiction that makes the telling feel faint and dreamlike. The story is brief: a boy swam here, lovers met here, and all of them were nourished. The river seems to hold a memory of the people who came to it, and it remembers them kindly.
By the end, sleep takes over completely. The eyes drop "over the abyss," and the dreams are described as stone. The speaker sounds peaceful and willing, not frightened. The mood is hushed and soothing, like being carried downstream into rest.