Cup by Edwina Stanton Babcock — Read

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!