Robert Frost: For Once, Then, Something

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 
Me 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.
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Public Domain