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.