Symbol Analysis
The "mansions" described in this poem are, in fact, barely described at all. The second stanza evasively talks around the big houses in the sky. It hints at them but doesn't dare describe them. That's because, as the poem's conclusion suggests, they're not for us to see. We get glimpses of the "Apparatus" of divine power, but we aren't allowed to know anything more specific about it. The "mansions" are framed as shady, obscure, and half-seen, and we remain mostly "ignorant" of their true nature.
- Lines 5-6: The parallel structure of these lines ("never quite disclosed/ never quite concealed") highlights the teasingly ambiguous nature of these "mansions" in the heavens. There's something coy about these phrases that suggests that they're lingering half in light and half in shadows. No matter how hard you look, you can never really make them out.
- Line 7: "The Apparatus of the Dark" seems to indicate the workings of the heavens. We can take this to refer to the literal "dark," as in the night sky, or the metaphorical "Dark" (with a capital D) -- perhaps the unknowable higher power of the Universe (you know, God, etc.). This half-revealed "Apparatus," or the shady framework of the "mansions" of Heaven, is a metonymy for the unknowable, vast, and mysterious power of God.
- Line 8: Clearly when the speaker refers to "ignorance," we can read "ignorant humans." In this synecdochal phrase, the single trait of our ignorance, or our inability to comprehend divinity, stands in for mankind as a whole.