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In this poem, the mirror is the speaker. It is an autobiographical poem. The mirror talks about itself, its surroundings and the woman who uses it. In this way, it gives its observations in an objective way without any personal bias. The mirror say that its appearance is silver and exact. It does not have any pre-conceptions or anything else about its existence. It is just what it is "Unmisted by love or dislike". It is neither cruel nor biased nor prejudiced, only truthful.
It can be called the eye of a little god, four-cornered, that is, it is framed in a four cornered frame and it remains fixed on the wall and sees the opposite wall and only when someone comes between it and the wall or at night
or in darkness, the reflection of the opposite wall goes away.
The mirror is like a lake, it drowns the face of the woman, who tries to see her reflection in it. She searches for her, beauty which she had in her youth. She grows sad to see herself old now. She then turns to "candles" or the moon "which the mirror calls "liars" because these create a misted kind of surrounding around the woman's face due to which she does not see the wrinkles or signs of old age. But the woman's real identity is revealed by the mirror. Seeing her changed face, the woman sheds some tears and moves her hands angrily.
The mirror is very important to the woman. Every morning she sees herself and she is filled with her fear at her reflection of having grown old. She feels like a fish out of water, but the mirror can't do anything as it reflects only the truth - that is what one really is. So, in this way, the mirror claims to be a very objective opinion giver
or reflector of images.
Personification
In this poem, we have many examples of personification, the mirror, candles and the moon are all
personified.
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