For Once, Then Something

Others taught 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.