Mirror

Water is a motif that underlines much of the poem. Its clearest incarnation is in the second stanza, where the mirror becomes a lake—a still body of water with unknowable fathoms. At this point the mirror has grown from a small ornament to its own multi-layered world, paralleling the growing significance in the woman’s life. As the fish begins to emerge, the lake holds all the depths of the internal self, unlike the flat simplicity of the bedroom mirror. Much like the person looking into it, the lake only reveals a very small part of itself; to get close enough to know it intimately would be to drown in it.

Earlier in the poem, hints of water as a central figure are hinted at in some of the language: “Whatever I see I swallow immediately” (Line 2) and “unmisted by love or dislike” (Line 3). The word choices “swallow” and “unmisted” bring to mind water in two different forms—the swallowing of water as it passes from one place to another, and the static suspended water of mist. The mist suggests a sense of deception or hidden things, suggesting that the truth the mirror so champions can be blurred by self-perception.

When the woman sits at the lakeside, she “rewards [it] with tears” (Line 14).