Jacques Shepherd's speaker takes a walk on an autumn morning and finds that the landscape is full of memory. Out in the Surrey countryside, walking two dogs, Gip and Meg, and standing on Box Hill, the speaker wonders whether this is the place where they last saw someone they loved. The clever turn is that the loved one is addressed as "October Morning," so the person and the season blur together.
The feeling is bittersweet. The speaker recalls both the "Hello" and the "Goodbye," and admits the place gave them a complete heart and then broke it. The questions that follow, "How are you now? Are you happy?", sound gentle rather than angry. The speaker says that if the other person is happy, then they are happy too, though they add quietly that there is no one else for them. The mood is wistful and tender, with a loneliness that the simple, ordinary details of dogs and fields make feel all the more real.