Thomas Hardy - "I Looked Up From My Writing" lyrics

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 a**ured she thought me One who should drown him too.