OTHERS taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture My myself in the summer heaven, godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, Something more of the depths -- and then I lost it. Water came to rebuke the too clear water. One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness? Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HIS OWNE EPITAPH by FRANCOIS VILLON A BROKEN APPOINTMENT by THOMAS HARDY THE MOWER TO THE GLOW-WORMS by ANDREW MARVELL THE MOTHER'S LAMENT by ST. CLAIR ADAMS RIDDLE by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD VERSES, SUGGESTED BY THE FUNERAL OF AN EPITAPH IN BURY CHURCH-YARD by BERNARD BARTON |