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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Helen Hoyt

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Bubbling Fountain

Helen Hoyt

THIS is a magic cup

That needs no lifting up,

And gushes the cool drink

From an ever flowing brink,

From an ever filling hollow.

As you swallow,

You can feel the water go

Against your lips with tumbling flow

And all its noises hear:

As if you were a deer

Or a wild goat,

Sucking the water into your throat

Where a little brook goes by

Under the trees and the summer sky.

Oh it is fun to drink this way!—

Like a pleasant game to play,

Not like drinking in other places;

And it is fun to watch the faces

That come and bend them at this urn.

Something you can learn

Of each person’s secret mind:

Know which is selfish, which is kind:

Those who guard their dignity.

And those whose curiosity

Is turning cold.

Many of the young are old,

And think

A drink is nothing but a drink,

Water is water—always the same;

They could not turn it into a game.

Charily, with solemn mien,

They lean—

These incurious of heart—

And hurrying depart.

But the children know it’s a gay rare thing

To drink outdoors from a running spring;

And laugh

And quaff,

As if their inquisitive zest

Would challenge to a test

The bounty of this store

Which gives, and still has more.

They drink up all they can:

Wait in turn to drink again.

As I watch the reaching lips

It seems to be my mouth that sips:

I stoop and rise with each one.

But when they are done,

And their faces touched with spray,

They quickly wipe it away.

And this, sometimes, I regret,—

Because their lips look prettier, wet.