Mirror (poem)

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"Mirror" is a poem written by Sylvia Plath. The poem is divided into two stanzas. In the poem Plath personifies the mirror by writing the poem in the mirror's point of view. The mirror in this sense leads a very absurd life. Its only purpose is to be brutally honest, not to judge, and that is what Plath finds negative; she can see herself aging in the mirror. The mirror describes this woman as hopeful because she hopes that she will see something more pleasant as each day goes by. The poem is also very narcissistic.

The full text of the poem is:

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever I 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.

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.