Here, the earth and the air become characters in a small, sad drama about control. The earth pulls the air down to the soil every day and holds it there, not out of cruelty exactly, but because it needs it. The speaker calls this selfishness, and the word lands hard in such a short, plain line.
The air is the poem's innocent. It believes it is free, but the final line makes clear that belief is an illusion. The water, by contrast, has worked out what is going on, and its tiredness and tears suggest grief or helplessness at knowing the truth and being unable to change it. The speaker seems to stand somewhere between sympathy and frustration, asking whether the air even understands what has been done to it.
The mood is quiet and heavy, with a kind of resigned sorrow. The poem reads like a fable about anyone who is kept in place by someone who needs them, and who mistakes that hold for freedom.