The Fox (symbol)
The fox, the poem's driving symbol, signifies the fickle, multifaceted nature of poetic inspiration. The fox is cold, delicate, and neat; however, he is also lame, sharp, and bold. He appears slowly, then suddenly, from the forest's darkness; he minds his own business, but he also provokes a powerful creative response in the speaker. The fox is both animal and idea; he is wild, but also subject to the poet's manipulation, an image to be used, described part by part.
The Eye (symbol)
Like the fox, the eye symbolizes inspiration. In lines 17-19, the speaker concentrates on the fox's eye just before an idea, "with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox," strikes him. However, the eye also symbolizes vision and perspective. The speaker draws out the seemingly simple, straight-forward image of the fox emerging from the forest through an abundance of colorful, specific adjectives and concrete imagery. Ultimately, the poem arises through the way the speaker sees the fox, and puts its image, significance, and affect to paper.
Stars (symbol and motif)
Stars traditionally symbolize inspiration, hope, and guidance. However, when the speaker looks out of his window in the first stanza, he sees no stars in the sky. Likewise, their absence corresponds to the lack of inspiration he feels, and forces him to look elsewhere for an idea. At the end, as the image of the fox causes a poem to coalesce in his mind, the speaker mentions that "the window is starless still." The speaker's ability to write a poem in spite of the stars' absence suggests that the speaker doesn't need to wait for divine, lofty inspiration, and that generally inspiration doesn't need to be divine or lofty: it can be right front of him, or inside his own mind.
The Forest (symbol)
The forest, dark and snowy, represents the speaker's mind. From his intuition that "something else is alive" and "near," he knows that an idea must be developing within it, even if he can only sense its outlines emerging from his mind's depth. At the end of the poem, the idea sparked by the fox's image enters "the dark hole" of the speaker's head, echoing the dense forest beyond his window.
Darkness (motif)
Darkness pervades "The Thought Fox." The speaker is alone at midnight, no stars shine in the sky, and the speaker's mind feels as dark and deep as the forest beyond his window. Even the snow is dark. Darkness ultimately represents the fecundity of a writer's mind, but it also represents the mind's sinister depths. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker can't say for sure what lurks just beyond his window, or just beside his own loneliness; at the end, the stars are still absent, but the speaker's "page is printed," which means the darkness, if not brighter, is less lonely, less void-like.
