It does not take rank as a true love lyric; it is too long, too many-motived for a lyric.

It is a meditative poem of recollective tenderness wandering through the past; and no poem written on married love in England is more beautiful.

The poet, sitting silent in the room where his wife sits with him, sees all his life with her unrolled, muses on what has been, and is, since she came to bless his life, or what will be, since she continues to bless it; and all the fancies and musings which, in a usual love lyric, would not harmonise with the intensity of love-passion in youth, exactly fit in with the peace and satisfied joy of a married life at home with God and nature and itself.

The poem is full of personal charm.

Quiet thought, profound feeling and sweet memory like a sunlit mist, soften the aspect of the room, the image of his wife, and all the thoughts, emotions and scenery described.