For Once, Then, Something in  General   

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.

By Robert Frost

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Other poems by Robert Frost:

• A Boundless Moment
• A Brook in the City
• A Cliff Dwelling
• A Dream Pang
• A Hillside Thaw
• A Hundred Collars
• A Late Walk
• A Line-Storm Song
• A Minor Bird
• A Patch of Old Snow
• A Peck of Gold
• A Prayer in Spring
• A Question
• A Servant to Servants
• A Soldier
• A Star in a Stoneboat
• A Time to Talk
• A Winter Eden
• Acceptance
• Acquainted With the Night
• After Apple-Picking
• An Empty Threat
• An Encounter
• Asking For Roses
• Bereft
• Birches
• Blue-Butterfly Day
• Blueberries
• Bond and Free
• Brown’s Descent
• But Outer Space
• Canis Major
• Christmas Trees
• Come In
• Desert Places
• Design
• Devotion
• Dust in the Eyes
• Dust of Snow
• Evening in a Sugar Orchard
• Fire and Ice
• Fireflies in the Garden
• Flower-Gathering
• For Once, Then, Something
• Fragmentary Blue
• Gathering Leaves
• Ghost House
• Going for Water
• Good Hours
• Good-by and Keep Cold
• Hannibal
• Home Burial
• Hyla Brook
• I Will Sing You One-O
• I. The Witch of Coös
• II. The Pauper Witch of Grafton
• In a Disused Graveyard
• In a Vale
• In the Home Stretch
• Into My Own
• Leaves Compared With Flowers
• Locked Out
• Lodged
• Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter
• Love and a Question
• Maple
• Meeting and Passing
• Mending Wall
• Misgiving
• Mowing
• My Butterfly
• My November Guest
• Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
• New Hampshire
• Not To Keep
• Nothing Gold Can Stay
• Now Close the Windows
• October
• On Going Unnoticed
• On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations
• Once By The Pacific
• One Step Backward Taken
• Our Singing Strength
• Pan with Us
• Pea Brush
• Place for a Third
• Plowmen
• Provide, Provide
• Putting in the Seed
• Range-Finding
• Reluctance
• Revelation
• Riders
• Rose Pogonias
• Sand Dunes
• Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight
• Snow
• Spring Pools
• Stars
• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
• Storm Fear
• The Aim was Song
• The Armful
• The Ax-Helve
• The Bear
• The Birthplace
• The Black Cottage
• The Bonfire
• The Census-Taker
• The Cocoon
• The Code
• The Cow In Apple-Time
• The Death of the Hired Man
• The Door in the Dark
• The Egg and the Machine
• The Exposed Nest
• The Fear
• The Flood
• The Flower Boat
• The Freedom of the Moon
• The Generations of Men
• The Gum-Gatherer
• The Investment
• The Kitchen Chimney
• The Last Mowing
• The Last Word of a Blue Bird
• The Line-Gang
• The Lockless Door
• The Mountain
• The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
• The Onset
• The Oven Bird
• The Pasture
• The Peaceful Shepherd
• The Road Not Taken
• The Rose Family
• The Runaway
• The Self-Seeker
• The Silken Tent
• The Soldier
• The Sound of the Trees
• The Span Of Life
• The Star-Splitter
• The Telephone
• The Thatch
• The Times Table
• The Trial by Existence
• The Tuft of Flowers
• The Vanishing Red
• The Vantage Point
• The Wood-Pile
• They Were Welcome To Their Belief
• To E.T.
• To Earthward
• To the Thawing Wind
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• Two Look at Two
• Two Tramps In Mud Time
• What Fifty Said
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