The first section simply describes an old springhouse: a small, neglected building that stays cool in summer and warm in winter. Its grates have rusted, its pipes are clogged, and water seeps in through cracks to leave a thin film across the floor. Life has moved in anyway. Phoebes nest in the rafters and salamanders leave tracks in the mud. The speaker calls it a refuge, though one he rarely enters.
The second section turns more reflective. The springhouse is the one building that doesn't line up with the others, and although the speaker sees it daily, he barely notices it. That oddness leads him to think of people who hold on to an "unfashionable truth" and spend their lives alone in prison cells or hermitages. The image is uneasy: they have nowhere dry to sit and no escape from the "corrosive flow." The mood is quiet and observant, tender toward the place but touched by unease, as if the humble building carries a hard comparison with those who stand apart.