This poem is set in fall during October. The setting is very natural, containing a lot of natural scenery and giving a good sense of the outdoors and seasons. In the poem we read about an aging man. The season is fall because it correlates with were the man is in life. It shows that his life is coming to an end; he is closing in on death.
The imagery being shown is supposed to mirror the old man, it’s a mixture of reality and nature combining the two showing the parallels between humans and nature/seasons. Everything in the world eventually comes to an end.
The narrator plays with light and dark also giving a sense of life and death. In the line “Dawn comes later and later now” it’s saying that fall is turning to winter. Winter is representing the end of the old man’s time.
This poem is showing how quickly time goes by and how short life really is, we see this in the line "pale and odd, startled by time". In this line the old man is surprised; to him it feels like old age has just sprung on him it came so quickly, without notice.
The last sentence "And I, who only wished to keep looking out, must now keep looking in" I feel has to do with death. Sort of like being alive and part of the world he could do whatever, be wherever, see wherever, but with death comes confinement. He is no longer free, he is eternally stuck with no light or windows or nature. It is just his body lying still, an eternity slumbering, forever in the earth.
