Summary
The speaker, sitting in his home at midnight, struggles to write a poem. He "imagines" that some idea must be brewing inside his head, even if he can't quite figure out a first line. He looks out of the window and sees no stars against the dark night sky. However, he feels that "something more near" must be lurking in the forest, waiting to enter his consciousness.
Analysis
There's a lot to unpack in these first two stanzas, so let's start with the basics: tone, mood, and setting.
We know right away that the poem is told from the perspective of a first-person speaker. We also know that he's alone, and it's midnight, and he's addressing his audience from his home, located at the edge of a forest. It's rather dark, even for midnight: the speaker can't see a single star in the sky when he looks out of the window. He wants to write something—let's say a poem—but for some reason, he's at a loss for inspiration. His fingers move over the blank page, but no words come. However, the clock isn't the only thing that keeps the speaker company on this lonely night: he feels that "something else is alive," even if he can't quite say or see what this something is.
The first line contains an important clue to understanding "The Thought-Fox." The speaker "imagines" this moment's "forest," which functions both as the poem's setting and its metaphorical and symbolic foundation. To grasp the forest's symbolic resonance, we can connect its image to the speaker's action and look for similarities between them. Because we "imagine" an idea or image with our heads, we know that the forest must also refer to the speaker's mind. Likewise, the "something else" lurking just beyond his reach must also lurk outside within the forest. The speaker imagines the poetic significance of the forest and the fox, but he also sees them. Additionally, everything contained in the forest must also exist in the speaker's mind, which will be useful when analyzing the fox's role in the poem.
The line "Something else is alive" imbues the poem with an ambiguous, disconcerting tone. It's difficult to say whether the speaker is anxious, afraid, or eager to encounter this "something." This tone is subtly emphasized by the poem's slow, steady pace, established through the abundance of "s" sounds, long vowels, and stressed syllables, all of which continue from the first stanza into the second. Combined, these elements create a sense of dread, while also foreshadowing the fox's careful, considered movements in the forest. The speaker draws out the first two stanzas the same the way the fox will slowly, then suddenly, emerge from the forest's clearing.
Although the speaker's struggle continues in stanza 2, he feels again that "something" is approaching him through the dark night. The absence of stars signals the speaker's lack of inspiration, but his intuition that an idea may be growing closer causes him to gaze deeper into the darkness outside, into the darkness within his mind. This something is "deeper within darkness" than the absent stars because of the forest's density and his mind's depth. The speaker isn't looking to unveil inspiration, but to discover something lurking deep within him, to coax this idea into the light, to make it so present that his words pour forth upon the page.
While stanza 1 lays bare the poem's situation, stanza 2 sets the stage for this "something" to come, which turns out to be the fox sniffing around in the dark, and the poem his image inspires.
