For once, then Something
For once, then Something
Original Text
Robert Frost, New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1923), p. 88. D-11 0397 Fisher Library.
1Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
2Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
3Deeper down in the well than where the water
4Gives me back in a shining surface picture
5Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
6Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
7Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
8I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
9Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
10Something more of the depths--and then I lost it.
11Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
12One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
13Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
14Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
15Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
Publication Start Year
1923
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme