The trick is in the title. "Alone" promises emptiness, and the first line, "All alone," seems to confirm it. Then the poem starts adding things. There is a wife, a lute, pleasure and content, so by the last line the speaker is "alone" only in the sense of being undisturbed. The central idea is that solitude and loneliness are different conditions. Being alone can mean being surrounded by exactly what you want and nothing else.
The word "alone" helps the argument. It began as "all one," and the poem seems to know this. Its speaker is all one: undivided, unhurried, at peace with a small, chosen circle. Read that way, the opening line is a statement of wholeness, not a complaint.
The construction is strict. The poem is just fourteen words, and after the first line every line begins with "with." That repetition works like a list of blessings being counted off, and it never gets to a main verb. Nobody does anything. There is no "I sit" or "I play," only a state of being, held steady like a held chord. The commas at the end of each line keep the sentence open, so the contentment feels as if it could go on past the page, and only the final full stop closes it.
The small adjustments are what make it worth rereading. The first three lines after the title are each three syllables long ("with my wife," "with my lute"), but the last two stretch to four: "with great pleasure," "with great content." The poem relaxes as it goes, and its lines widen slightly, like a breath let out. The possessive "my" also disappears. The first two items are claimed as "my wife" and "my lute." Then "my" drops away and "great" takes its place twice. The speaker moves from what he has to what he feels, and "with" shifts its meaning along the way. At first it means "in the company of," but by the end it means "in a state of." You can be with a person, and you can just as easily be with an emotion.
There is no conventional rhyme, and the poem doesn't miss it. It does have quieter echoes. "Alone" and "content" both end on a stressed syllable closed by an *n*, so the poem begins and ends on the same kind of sound, which helps it feel settled. "Wife" and "lute" are short, plain monosyllables that sit side by side without comment. Putting a person and an instrument in the same breath is a little odd, and it could be read as comic or tender. Perhaps both: the wife and the lute are two sources of harmony, one human and one musical. Judging by the imagery, the lute also gives the poem an old-fashioned feel, a world of quiet domestic music rather than noise and screens, though the poem never says when or where it is set.
"Content" may carry a second meaning. As an adjective it means satisfied, but as a noun it means what something holds. The reader may half-hear both senses. The speaker is content, and his small life has real content: a wife, music, pleasure. Nothing is missing, so nothing needs saying.
What makes the poem significant is how little it needs. Poems about solitude often lean toward longing or melancholy, and this one refuses that. It doesn't argue for contentment or lecture about simplicity. It just lists what is there and lets the arithmetic work: one speaker plus one wife plus one lute, and the result is "great." The brevity matches the claim. A long poem about being satisfied would seem to protest too much, but five short lines suggest someone who has no need to explain himself.
For students, the poem is also a good lesson in how much a single word can do. Change "alone" to "lonely" and everything collapses, because the poem depends on keeping the word and then filling it with company. It reminds us that a poem doesn't have to be large or difficult to turn a familiar idea upside down. Here a little repetition, a little widening of the line and one carefully chosen title are enough.