EMILY MONDAY

This is another one of those poems that hworks on two levels. The literal level, obviously, is about a well. I’m wondering about the symbolic/metaphoric level, however. Is it well as person? Or well as work of art? Any other ideas?

1400

What mystery pervades a well!

That water lives so far —

A neighbor from another world

Residing in a jar

Whose limit none have ever seen,

But just his lid of glass —

Like looking every time you please

In an abyss’s face!

The grass does not appear afraid,

I often wonder he

Can stand so close and look so bold

At what is awe to me.

Related somehow they may be,

The sedge stands next the sea —

Where he is floorless

And does no timidity betray

But nature is a stranger yet;

The ones that cite her most

Have never passed her haunted house,

Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not

Is helped by the regret

That those who know her, know her less

The nearer her they get.