Ernest Hyde Edgar Lee Masters My mind was a mirror: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. In my youth my mind was just a mirror In a rapidly flying car, Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.          5 Then in time Great scratches were made on the mirror, Letting the outside world come in, And letting my inner self look out. For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,                10 A birth with gains and losses. The mind sees the world as a thing apart, And the soul makes the world at one with itself. A mirror scratched reflects no image -  And this is the silence of wisdom.                           15 Questions 1.) How is the metaphor of a mirror used throughout the       poem? 2.) What type of contribution do the last two lines make? 3.) What is meant by the description of the "rapidly flying       car" in line 4?

Analysis The speaker is a person who has passed their youth and is looking back from a sage�s perspective.  They have lived through most of life�s perils.  The poem does not have a direct audience, but the speaker does seem to be trying to teach others not to make the mistake they made.  They are attempting to teach by example of their mistake.  The purpose of the poem is to give readers a sense of understanding to what ignorance can lead. The first line of the poem is a metaphor.  The speaker is comparing their mind to a mirror.  By this, they mean that they could only think of one thought: their thought.  No other point of view could enter their mind, and no other perspective could change their view.  They were adamantly set in what they believed and refused to believe anything else.  Then the speaker begins to explain that their mind was a mirror in a rapidly flying car.  This once again reiterates the idea that the speaker was very stubborn about his point of view.  They loses sight of other perspectives because they�re so busy worrying about theirs.  The scenery was a giant blur. In line 7, the speaker talks about �great scratches.� These scratches were marks that were made by age and time.  They began to open the worldview.  No longer was self-existence the center of the world.  Other people began to exist as well.  Line 10 speaks of a �birth of the soul in sorrow.�  This birth signifies a life-altering event like a death of a close friend, or a birth of a new family.  These events lead to wider views of a person�s world. The mind stops seeing the world as a mass of people who do not matter. The world is suddenly a vast land filled with unfamiliar faces that might make the difference in a life. The last two lines of the poem are very powerful.  An unscratched mirror reflects back only one person while a scratched mirror reflects back many reflections. In this way, scratched mirrors are better than an unscratched one for many people can account for much wisdom while one person accounts for a fool.

poem taken from bartleby.com