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.