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.

The Poem

Written in hendecasyllabic meter (11 syllables per line) and unrhymed verse, the poem seems to be an easy read. It uses words so ordinary any reader could go through it without having to stop for the meaning. The persona tells of his experience of looking down into wells and being ridiculed all the time by people who could arguably be his enemies, or his friends who know better than he. "Always wrong to the light," the persona never sees what he is there, in the first place, for - the truth. Instead, he sees his own reflection, looking like a god - an allusion to Narcissus who looks down into a...