A CUP OF TEA.
Reading edition
I have sipped, with drooping lashes, Dreamy draughts of Verzenay; I have flourished brandy-smashes In the wildest sort of way; I have joked with "Tom and Jerry" Till wee hours ayont the twal'— But I've found my tea the very Safest tipple of them all!
'Tis a mystical potation That exceeds in warmth of glow And divine exhilaration All the drugs of long ago— All of old magicians' potions— Of Medea's filtered spells— Or of fabled isles and oceans Where the Lotos-eater dwells!
Though I've reveled o'er late lunches With blase dramatic stars, And absorbed their wit and punches And the fumes of their cigars— Drank in the latest story, With a cock-tail either end,— I have drained a deeper glory In a cup of tea, my friend.
Green, Black, Moyune, Formosa, Congou, Amboy, Pingsuey— No odds the name it knows—ah! Fill a cup of it for me! And, as I clink my china Against your goblet's brim, My tea in steam shall twine a Fragrant laurel round its rim.