If you walk through Quince Street,
Never stand and stare,
Hollyhocks will ask you
To go otherwhere;
Apples growing you may see,
Raspberry and pear tree;
Wisdom and a pretty wit
If you know where to look for it.
If you walk through Joy Street,
Take a little heed
To keep a fairly sober air,
Dignity you’ll need;
There’s something about Joy Street
Goes to the head indeed.
And when you are in Gay Street
Choose a sober pace,
Clematis along the fence,
Shakes its stars like lace;
And twinkling little cups of flowers
Toss in a sheltered place.
If you look for money,
There’s New Dollar Lane,
And Mill Street, another street
With a pirate pointing vane;
Consulting maps and other code
You’ll find the Thousand Dollar Road!
And last of all, wherever you walk,
Stagger through Stone Alley,
Slip along the cobbled stone,
Slide methodically;
Honeysuckle may evade,
Birds shilly-shally,
But a good place to meet a maid
Is in Stone Alley.
How e’er you walk in any street,
Wear a pleasant smile
As if you hoped to meet a dream
Before the next mile—
And you may find that dream
Waiting by a stile!
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.”