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On the surface, the tone of “Mirror” seems calm and even-tempered. Yet beneath the poem’s placid surface, there is a deeper agitation that reveals a concern with life’s brevity. The poem’s speaker—first a mirror, then a lake—insists throughout the poem on their unimpeachable objectivity. The mirror claims that they “have no preconceptions” (line 1), and they assert that they are truthful rather than cruel in the way they reproduce images. Likewise, the lake insists on its capacity to reflect the world “faithfully” (line 13). The mirror and the lake make these claims in a calm, clear, and measured language that neatly reflects their assertions. Yet the speaker undermines their claims to tranquil objectivity at several points. To take just one, when the lake says they reflect the woman’s back “faithfully,” their choice of the word faithfully suggests loyalty as much as objectivity. And indeed, it’s precisely this faithfulness to the woman that causes the lake distress as they reflect—and reflect on—the woman’s aging face in lines 17–18:

     In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
     Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

In these lines, the speaker reveals their anxiety about the brevity of human life through the image that equates the woman’s aging face to that of “a terrible fish.”

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