The poem opens in a mood of weary drifting. The speaker talks about changing "from sorrow to sorrow," as if there is no real escape, only a shift from one grief to another. The moon, passing from cloud to cloud, mirrors that restless movement. Nothing settles.
Then the focus narrows to a human image: a man seen more from behind than from the front, reflected in a pool, bent by age and "dead with waiting." The speaker turns away from the wind, which suggests a retreat inward, away from the harshness outside.
The final lines bring in men coming back from an "empty catch," presumably fishermen. They are distant and hard to reach. Yet the speaker says they welcome those who are still waiting. That small gesture is the warmest moment in the poem. The mood stays quiet and somber, but it lets in a little fellow feeling: the speaker finds some comfort in people who endure disappointment and keep waiting anyway.