Sunset here is less a scene than a feeling of the whole world loosening. The poem opens with distance "closed in" amber light, and from there the sky seems to open into something vast and almost unreal. The speaker watches the colors shift through reds and violets and treats them as more than decoration: they stand for the endless whims of time, for forgotten days, and for brief sensations that hold the dreams of "a distant race."
The speaker feels wonder, and a touch of wistfulness. Night arrives as a kind of surrender, with the "first illusion abdicated," as though daylight gives up its authority. By the end, the rain-slick clouds catch quick reflections, and laughing stars seem to break "the possibilities of being." That final phrase is open to interpretation, but it suggests the dark sky makes life feel both fragile and full of chances. The mood is dreamy, quiet, and slightly mysterious, like a moment when ordinary time slips away.