The speaker sits in a kind of dread, listening to catastrophe before it arrives. The title gives the clue: a storm is coming, and the poem is made of what the speaker hears and foresees. Books burn, a roof collapses on the whole world, and the images move from the loss of culture to the loss of shelter.
The last two stanzas turn toward society. "The poor will demand / better fear" is a strange, unsettling line. It suggests that when everything falls apart, even fear will become something unequal, and people will want a safer, finer version of it. Then moonlight, which belongs to everyone, becomes a "commodity" sold like "a private god." Even wonder and faith get fenced off and priced.
The mood is bleak and quietly furious. The short lines and plain wording make the warnings sound calm and certain, as if the speaker has already accepted what is coming.