Summary
The speaker personifies Imagination as a potent and wondrous queen in the first stanza. In the second stanza, the speaker implores Helicon, the source of poetic inspiration in Greek mythology, to aid them in making a song glorifying Imagination. Fancy, introduced in the third stanza, wanders looking for something to love until she is struck and bound by some love object.
Imagination aids in the freedom of the mind in the fourth stanza, and though Winter frowns at Fancy in the fifth stanza, with the help of Imagination, fields grow, and flowers and leaves grow as well. This power is part of imagination, and imagination rules passion and thought.
But, though Fancy may now try to escape the bounds placed on her and rise up, as Aurora makes the sun rise, the speaker must leave the pleasing views of Aurora and the mountains because Winter prevents the speaker from rising up the mountain.
The speaker ends the poem on a melancholy note, after imploring their song to "cease the unequal lay."
Analysis
"On Imagination" is divided into seven stanzas. The first three stanzas have four lines each, and the rhyme scheme for these stanzas is AABB. The final four stanzas have variable line lengths, mostly maintaining the rhyming couplets. In the final stanza, in lines 43-45, there is a rhyming triplet.
In "On Imagination," Wheatley begins with an innovative meter and form, using rhyming couplets to add a whimsical and playful tone to the poem. The poem begins by introducing Imagination as a queen, and showing deference to the "various works" and "wondrous acts" of Imagination. In this stanza, Imagination rules over the mind, and the speaker grants authority to the Imagination. The fourth stanza introduces the first-person "We," suggesting that the reader and the speaker are allowed to "[leave] the rolling universe behind," and "grasp the mighty whole" of the cosmos or "amaze th' unbounded soul" because of Imagination. This stanza suggests that Imagination allows both the reader and the speaker to grasp possibilities outside of the self, and to face the vast and unmeasurable nature of the soul. In the sixth stanza, Imagination controls thought and passion. By personifying Imagination in this way, the speaker recognizes the power and sway that Imagination has over creativity, love, longing, devotion, growth, and the soul. Without Imagination, none of these things are possible.
The personified Fancy is in direct conversation with Imagination, and it seems to be the fancy of the speaker. The speaker seems to fall under the sway of some kind of love object, and is fettered by this attachment. Though the ominous force of Winter tries to hold the speaker's Fancy back, Imagination helps the speaker to imagine spring, and the flowering of love and possibility. Indeed, the "subject-passions" are ruled by Imagination, and Imagination has the power to create anything in this poem. But Winter, which symbolizes reality, must eventually materialize, and though the speaker's Fancy may try to break free of the shackles placed on her by love, as the sun rises, and Aurora rises with it, the speaker must turn away from the sun rise, from the mountain, and rejoin Winter.
So, even though Imagination allows hearts and minds to wander, eventually reality must set in, and reality cannot let us—the reader or the speaker—live wholly in the imagination.
The fetters described in this poem also symbolize slavery, and the limitations placed on the enslaved. Indeed, though the Fancy of the speaker wishes to ascend from the shackles placed onto her, and rise to Aurora, the reality of winter forbids this. Imagination has its limits in this poem, and ultimately Winter—reality—must step in and limit the possibilities of the Imagination. Since Winter forbids the speaker to "aspire," it seems like the speaker cannot rise, breathe, or imagine too much. Indeed, reality seems to place shackles that even Imagination cannot surpass. By ending the poem asking to "cease the unequal lay," the speaker suggests that there is an unequal relationship between reality and imagination, and implores this inequality to cease.
The relationship between the speaker and Winter is also an allegory for enslavement within this poem, as imagination is stopped by Winter's control, and the speaker must listen to Winter's demands to turn away from Aurora and the mountains against their wishes.
