1. Of this you are sure:
    1. All that glitters is gold.
    2. All the Golden Delicious apples in this bushel will make several gallons of delicious cider for us to enjoy around the fireplace.
  2. If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow:
    1. You suspect it’s just a spring clean for the May queen.
    2. You suspect it’s just spring lacrosse season and Brewster, Declan, Holden, and/or Tate lost their lacrosse ball again and are rummaging in the hedges looking for it.
  3. If the stores are all closed:
    1. With a word you can get what you came for.
    2. Stores don’t close on Martha’s Vineyard until 6 or 7. Besides, I can order the Whale and Anchor Sweater, New England’s spin on the classic Norwegian sweater, online.
  4. Your head is humming because:
    1. If you don’t know, the piper is calling you to join him.
    2. Too many mimosas at the Head of the Charles regatta! Plus your Labradors are playing chess and your mind just blew up because you didn’t know dogs could fucking play chess!
  5. Can you hear the wind blow, and did you know your stairway lies on the whispering wind?
    1. Yes.
    2. Yes. But the wind better not blow too hard because we still have so much more leaf-peeping to do!
  6. As you wind on down the road:
    1. Your shadow is taller than your soul.
    2. This 1982 Jeep Grand Wagoneer still feels like you’re riding on rails even with a canoe, a Christmas tree, and a bushel of pumpkins tied to its roof.
  7. There’s a sign on the wall and:
    1. You want to be sure ‘cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
    2. You don’t care if it says “No Dogs Allowed” because your Labradors go everywhere you go including all the restaurants in Kennebunk so signs be damned!
  8. In a tree by the brook:
    1. There’s a songbird who sings sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
    2. There’s my Adirondack Moose Fleece jacket which I haphazardly hung on the tree branch to join the impromptu game of touch football.
  9. Yes, there are two paths you can go by:
    1. But in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on.
    2. But in the long run both paths lead to the dock to which I’ve tied by 1958 Riva Tritone faster; however path number two has prettier and far more vibrant hydrangeas.
  10. If you listen very hard:
    1. The tune will come to you at last when all is one and one is all, that's what it is.
    2. The tune will likely be Vampire Weekend and the faint sounds of Kinsley, Schuyler, and Leighton eating lobster and corn on the cob.
  11. The feeling you get when you look to the West can best be described as:
    1. “My spirit is crying for leaving.”
    2. “Back in the aughts, when I attended Princeton—I went to visit Pippa at Stanford and thought it a Shangri La where beautiful, entitled people lounged around in shorts all year long sipping iced tea or Chablis, occasionally leafing open a biology textbook to look at the pictures, never getting ruffled or upset, all with an air of respectability and poise. Needless to say, I was a tad envious, but I’m still glad I went to Princeton.”
  12. We all know you when you walk because:
    1. You shine white light and want to show how everything still turns to gold.
    2. Your snowshoes left prints in the snow all around this ski lodge.

All As: You have ascended the stairway to heaven. But if my interpretation of the song is correct, you spent your life being materialistic and greedy and now you are in hell.

All Bs: The only stairways you ascend are ladders to barn lofts outside of Burlington, Vermont; staircases in old houses in Newport, Rhode Island; and those ladders affixed to lakeside docks that help you get out of a boat. (Also see above regarding being in hell.)

Mostly As: You are most likely Robert Plant’s muse but HELLO you know that all that glitters is not gold because your Anchor Atlantic monogram bracelet is pearls and it glitters just fine thank you.

Mostly Bs: You love riding in the back of that vintage truck with all of the pumpkins and apples and corn you just harvested, but part of you wouldn’t mind taking a ride on John Paul Jones’s '70s-era mustache.

Half As & Half Bs: You definitely pretend you are Jimmy Page and play air guitar with your croquet mallet.

Neither As nor Bs: Oooooh and it makes me wonder… that lyric “when all is one and one is all” is basically a metaphor for this Nantucket Summer Soiree Indian Madras Patchwork Shift dress, right?

Related

Resources