The Meaning of Meaning

Okay, so maybe this is me getting all defensive and seeing things that aren't really there.

I've run across this same quote from C.S. Lewis a few times recently, and something about it bugs me.

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creature with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

I think what I'm reading in this quote is that the "meaning" being spoken of with relation to the universe is the kind of "meaning" synonymous with "purpose, intent, design". That is, the way I end up reading this quote is something like this:

"If the whole universe has no purpose, we should never have found out that is has no purpose"

If I'm wrong in this regard, then good on ya', Clive, and shame on me for being paranoid.

However, what remains to bug me about this argument is the linguistic ambiguity in the word "meaning". The word has two different, well, meanings. Or manifestations, rather. It can be either a concept in the abstract, or a singular definite thing. Put into the context of the original quote, it is essentially two different things to say:

"If the whole universe has no meaning"

"If the whole universe has no meaning in it"

The first seems to me to generally ascribe some singular "meaning" to the universe itself. The second means that the concept of meaning exists within the universe. The first says that universe has a purpose for being, while the second makes a parallel to the light analogy, and says that meaning exists within the universe, opposite of randomness and/or lack of meaning.
The universe can be full of light, without being light itself. It can be full of reason, without having a reason itself. It can be full of goodness, without being good itself. I suppose the opposite could also be true.

So I'm not really sure what Lewis was getting at with these sentences. Is he arguing the purpose of the universe itself, or the concept of meaning within the universe, such that individual things and actions may be ascribed meaning, or find meaning? Is meaning being understood as an independent or dependent idea? A created, emergent concept, or an eternal, discovered concept?