A speaker walks through a field of grass and remembers walking there with someone who is no longer beside them. The poem never says why. The person might have died, moved away, or simply left, and that openness lets readers fill in their own loss. What it does make clear is the longing. The speaker misses the summers they shared and still hopes for more walks in the future, which makes the wish to have the person back feel painful and hopeful at once.
The grass is a quiet thread throughout. It sways in the breeze, and the lines suggest the loved one once swayed alongside the speaker. In the last stanza, two flowers stand out from the green, and the speaker sees them as "violet eyes watching." Judging by the title, this may be how the speaker imagines the absent person, still present in the landscape. The mood is gentle, wistful, and tender, closer to soft sadness than despair.