I Looked Up from My Writing

I looked up from my writing,

And gave a start to see,

As if rapt in my inditing,

The moon's full gaze on me.

Her meditative misty head

Was spectral in its air,

And I involuntarily said,

'What are you doing there?'

'Oh, I've been scanning pond and hole

And waterway hereabout

For the body of one with a sunken soul

Who has put his life-light out.

'Did you hear his frenzied tattle?

It was sorrow for his son

Who is slain in brutish battle,

Though he has injured none.

'And now I am curious to look

Into the blinkered mind

Of one who wants to write a book

In a world of such a kind.'

Her temper overwrought me,

And I edged to shun her view,

For I felt assured she thought me

One who should drown him too.