On the surface, this is a quiet night scene: moths gathering around the nearest light, all dancing to the same song. But the speaker sees more than a swarm. They imagine that each moth secretly longs for something far beyond the lamp, and that each longing is its own.
The speaker keeps saying "I'm sure," which gives the poem a gentle, almost tender tone, as if they are guessing at private dreams. One small moth wants a nova nobody has ever seen. Another refuses to show off and picks a red star because red feels unique. A third simply settles for the closest one. From outside, they all look alike in gray and brown, yet each would fly off in a different direction.
The mood is calm and wistful. The poem suggests that people, too, can look identical in a crowd while carrying very different hopes. The epigraph, which in Latin roughly says "a different star for each moth," frames that idea neatly.