Love: Deep love lies at the center of the poem Echo. The speaker still remembers her lost beloved with the same intensity as before. She wishes the beloved would return in dreams so they could share closeness again, “pulse for pulse, breath for breath.” Even though she has lost the beloved in real life, the pull of love has not faded. This love sometimes brings her peace, and sometimes fills her with pain.

Memory: Memory in the poem is both sweet and bitter. The speaker remembers the beloved’s gentle face, bright eyes, and their past intimacy. These memories keep her alive because through them she can relive the relationship. But the same memories also hurt her, because the “finished years” can never return. Memory, therefore, becomes a source of light on one side and deep sorrow on the other.

Death: Death is the most painful theme in the poem. The “slow door” in the second stanza represents a door that opens to take someone in but never lets them out again. It clearly symbolizes death. The beloved has passed through that door and can never return in real life. So the speaker depends on dreams, where death is temporarily defeated. In the poem, death stands for permanent separation, but memory and love rise above that final boundary.