A speaker walks alone down a cold, dark road at night, and the poem follows their pull between two calls. The first comes from a person who is worried about them. The speaker answers it the way a ship turns toward a lighthouse, which suggests safety and a way home. Then a second call arrives, more tempting and further from the real world. The speaker turns toward it like a sailor lured by a siren, a figure whose song leads to danger.
The strange thing is how calm the speaker is. The presence has no eyes, hair or face, yet they feel no fear. In the last lines they step toward its song and "drown deeper" in a sea of stars. The mood is quiet, dreamy and unsettling. The poem seems to describe being drawn toward numbness, escape or despair, though it never says so directly. The beauty of the ending makes the danger feel even stronger.