The poem opens with a strange idea: wanting a beautiful thing without owning it. The "new hat" alludes to feathered fashion, and the speaker suggests the eye can be satisfied by plumage alone, without it ever sitting on a head. The second stanza then becomes a kind of roll call of birds, each named and colored with obvious delight: egret, heron, gallinule.
Then the tone darkens. Guy Bradley, named plainly, is "shot in the back on the shell-shored island," and the line "Plumes worth more than gold" hints at the greed that made feathers deadly. The poem suggests, judging by these lines, that he died protecting birds.
The ending is quiet and cautious. The birds now "stand unconcerned, preening," but the speaker worries about the shrinking river: "Not enough water... but enough for now." The mood moves from admiration to grief to a wary, tentative relief.