The Speaker, writing under the pen name Immerito, is a heartbroken lover suffering from profound depression and anhedonia. Unable to eat, sleep, or find pleasure in music, he obsessively fixates on his lost love. He directs his poetic verse to act as a mediator, carrying his misery and enduring adoration across physical distance to reach the woman he misses.

The Beloved is an unnamed woman whose absence causes the Speaker intense suffering. She is envisioned continuing her everyday life indifferently, dining with others or playing her heavenly virginals. In the Speaker's mind, she remains the singular, irreplaceable source of beauty and pleasure.

The Messenger is the personification of the Speaker's poetry, invoked to carry his lamentations. Commanded to grow fluttering wings, this entity is tasked with flying to the Beloved to report the Speaker's starving, sleepless, and dying state. It functions as a bridge between the two former lovers, preserving the Speaker's emotions in art.