On His Own Face in a Glass

On His Own Face in a Glass - meaning Summary

Facing Fragmented Self

Pound’s short lyric confronts the speaker’s reflected face as a crowded theater of contradictory selves. Addressing the mirror, the speaker names varied presences—ribald, saintly, sorrowful—then collapses into urgent questioning: who am I among these fleeting masks? The poem sketches identity as plural, performative, and unstable, ending in unresolved interrogation that leaves the self fragmented and uncertain rather than settled.