Poems about theory of mind

TerzaRima

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I posted this in Poetry, but I thought I'd try here as well because of this subforum's inclination to the abstract. I'm looking for poems referencing theory of mind--in other words, awareness that other people exist and have their own separate thoughts.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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I don't know if this quite qualifies, but here's one by A.E.Housman.

Good creatures, do you love your lives
And have you ears for sense?
Here is a knife like other knives,
That cost me eighteen pence.

I need but stick it in my heart
And down will come the sky,
And earth's foundations will depart
And all you folk will die.
 

TiPerihelion

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Try Conrad Aiken. From "Palimpsest: The Deceitful Portrait":

Once, on a sun-bright morning,
I walked in a certain hallway, trying to find
A certain door: I found one, tried it, opened,
And there in a spacious chamber, brightly lighted,
A hundred men played music, loudly, swiftly,
While one tall woman sent her voice above them
In powerful sweetness. . . .Closing then the door
I heard it die behind me, fade to whisper,—
And walked in a quiet hallway as before.
Just such a glimpse, as through that opened door,
Is all we know of those we call our friends. . . .
We hear a sudden music, see a playing
Of ordered thoughts—and all again is silence.
The music, we suppose, (as in ourselves)
Goes on forever there, behind shut doors,—
As it continues after our departure,
So, we divine, it played before we came . . .