Gozzi's poem is only three short lines, and it works by letting a command slip into doubt. It begins with an instruction, "go forward," the kind of thing we tell ourselves when we feel stuck or unsure. Then the second line bends the sound of that phrase into "for word," which shifts the meaning. Moving ahead now seems tied to language, to writing or speaking, though the line is too clipped to say exactly how. The last line, "for what?", turns the whole thing into a question about purpose.
The speaker seems tired, or at least uncertain. There is an urge to keep going, and right beside it a challenge to that urge. The judging-by-the-sound wordplay makes the poem feel like a thought catching itself mid-step. The title, three asterisks in place of a name, adds to the sense of something unnamed and unresolved.
The mood is bare and a little restless. Nothing is answered, and the poem stops on the question, leaving the reader to supply their own reason for going on.