CUP.

I walked among them with my cup of blue; It was aflame sometimes, and sometimes trembled With sweet of all the exquisite things I knew. Yet was I feared to tell the draught, dissembled, My wish to have these strangers taste the brew That to my lip all sky and sun resembled. I walked among them, holding up my grail; Holding it steady, bidding to the drinking. It was the best I knew; luminous, pale, Changeful and fiery in its bubbled winking; I watched its vital depth grow warm and sunny, Ethereal-bitter—sometimes sweet as honey. I walked among them with my cup of blue; They laughed and turned to chatter at my rapture. “What cup is this,” they asked, “of simple brew? What un-sure Wine, what grail of dullard’s capture? This is no drink to slake our fevered dryness; This mead for us would hold but acid wryness.” I walk among them with my azure bowl, To fete and market-place and to the threshing; Today there is no feast, there is no soul But craves the cup I bring, nor its refreshing, And yet in vain I raise my flashing beaker And pledge my toast—to Truth and the Truth Seeker!