The speaker in “Illusion” keeps noticing how anticipation inflates things: a dream castle or exotic land looks enchanted until one walks into it, then it becomes ordinary space. The same letdown happens with a lover or spring once they are present and taken for granted. Seeing clearly, the poem implies, takes stopping and wondering rather than thought. Tulips only open to that kind of attention; chocolate disappears in two bites, while people chase “diet versions” and miss how good dry bread tastes to real hunger. Country lanes promise something wondrous but end at another field. The mood is wistful, wry, a little tired of yearning. What the body cannot reach through pursuit is a buried heaven, and the final lines suggest it may come only by giving up the chase and turning toward the source of the goad itself.
Illusion — Summary
the dream castle the exotic land expand to ordinary space as you walk into them almost bored the magic gone with presence like a lover, or Spring taken for granted
these tulips open only seen with stopping, wondering abandoning mind's webs
this chocolate gone with two quick bites yet we go on exclaiming chasing inventing diet versions not noticing how good dry bread is to hunger
the country lanes we walk always beckoning to something wondrous new but the lane ends at just another field
the body cannot follow some lost buried heaven above taste or mind until abandonment to the goad's source