The Results of Thought
The Results of Thought - meaning Summary
Imagination Restores the Lost
The poem considers how thought or imagination can revive what youth and fate have destroyed. The speaker remembers brilliant women ruined by a "bitter glory" and claims that, after long effort, deep thought lets him summon back their wholesome strength. He then asks what images, what mental acts, can alter perception, ease time’s burdens, and make bodies and minds straighten or respond. It meditates on mental restoration and the power of inner images.
Read Complete AnalysesAcquaintance; companion; One dear brilliant woman; The best-endowed, the elect, All by their youth undone, All, all, by that inhuman Bitter glory wrecked. But I have straightened out Ruin, wreck and wrack; I toiled long years and at length Came to so deep a thought I can summon back All their wholesome strength. What images are these That turn dull-eyed away, Or Shift Time's filthy load, Straighten aged knees, Hesitate or stay? What heads shake or nod?
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