A speaker sits at a bedroom window at night, watching the neighbouring houses light up. The glowing windows become "little photographs of light," small snapshots of other people's lives. But the speaker keeps asking why they spend their time just observing instead of acting, as if watching were a kind of wasted life.
The view stretches from the orange glow of the suburbs to the city reaching toward the sky in the east. Looking at all of it, the speaker feels cut off. The idea that "this world... belongs" to everyone is called a comforting lie, something to calm the fears behind the eyes. The speaker also admits that the mind can doubt what the eyes see.
The mood is quiet, lonely and reflective. The ending returns to the window, with the speaker wondering whether the neighbours could ever understand a life like theirs. It leaves the question open, and the isolation unresolved.