2. Stanza I
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
3. Addressed by an inanimate object (Mirror is Personified)
Sets out to define itself and its function
Has no preconceptions because it is without memory or
ability to reason.
It is omnivorous – swallows everything it confronts
without making judgments that might blur, mist, or
distort.
It is god-like in its objectivity and incapable of
emotional response.
Most of the time it meditates on the opposite wall,
faithfully reproducing its colors and design until
darkness intervenes.
Analysis
4. Stanza II
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old
woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
5. Analysis
The mirror becomes a perfectly reflecting lake, unruffled by any
disturbance
No matter how deeply she searches, she sees only her actuality or
surface truth.
The candles and moon to which the woman turns are liars capable
of lending untruthful shadows and romantic highlights – unlike the
lake surface/mirror, which shows only faithful images.
Unhappy by what she sees, she weeps and wrings her hands.
The youth and beauty once reflected during her morning visits are
drowned in the metaphorical depths of the lake.
What slowly emerges from those depths is the terrifying fact that
she is aging.
6. Writing Style
Written in free verse – no rhyming scheme
Written in first person
Use of simple sentences
Very few adjectives due to use of
metaphors
Use of Personification
7. Personification &
Metaphor
The speaker is not a person, but a personified mirror throughout the
poem.
Candles and the moon are personified, giving them human qualities,
like the ability to lie.
The words ‘swallow’, ‘see’ & ‘look’ are used as metaphor for
reflecting and personifies the mirror.
"Unmisted" is used as a metaphor for "unchanged.“
This drowning and rising up is used as metaphor. With the young
girl drowning, and the old woman rising, it seems most likely that the
water is a metaphor for time, or aging.
The old woman rises up "like" a terrible fish, which is a simile.
