Poems by Edward Estlin Cummings2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree
smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here
(and i imagine
never mind Joe agreeably cheerfully remarked when
surrounded by fat stupid animals
the Jewess shrieked
a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon
(where once good lips stalked or eyes firmly stirred)
a light Out)
& first of all foam
-like hair spatters creasing pillow
next everywhere hidinglyseek
a man who had fallen among thieves
lay by the roadside on his back
dressed in fifteenthrate ideas
a pretty a day
(and every fades)
is here and away
(but born are maids
to flower an hour
in all,all)
o yes to flower
a total stranger one black day
knocked living the hell out of me--
who found forgiveness hard because
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
all which isn't singing is mere talking
and all talking's talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
am was. are leaves few this. is these a or
scratchily over which of earth dragged once
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
!blac
k
agains
t
(whi)
te sky
?t
rees whic
h fr
om droppe
d
,
le
af
a:;go
e
s wh
IrlI
n
.g
When I have struggled through three hundred years
of Roman history, and hastened o'er
because i love you)last night
clothed in sealace
appeared to me
your mind drifting
with chuckling rubbish
because it's
Spring
thingS
dare to do people
(& not
the other way
round)because it
's A
pril
Lives lead their own
between the breasts
of bestial
Marj lie large
men who praise
Marj's cleancornered strokable
body these men's
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons justlikethat
Jesus
but if a living dance upon dead minds
why,it is love;but at the earliest spear
of sun perfectly should disappear
but mr can you maybe listen there's
me &
some people
and others please
don'tconfuse.Some
people
but the other
day i was passing a certain
gate rain
fell as it will
in spring
ropes
of silver gliding from sunny
buy me an ounce and i'll sell you a pound.
Turn
gert
(spin!
helen)the
slimmer the finger the thicker the thumb(it's
whirl,
dead every enourmous piece
of nonsense which itself must call
a state submicroscopic is-
compared with pitying terrible
he isn't looking at anything
he isn't looking for something
he isn't looking
he is seeing
what
not something outside himself
dying is fine)but Death
?o
baby
i
wouldn't like
Death if Death
were
good:for
when(instead of stopping to think)you
ecco a letter starting"dearest we"
unsigned:remarkably brief but covering
one complete miracle of nearest far
enter no(silence is the blood whose flesh
is singing)silence:but unsinging. In
spectral such hugest how hush,one
1.
Thou aged unreluctant earth who dost
with quivering continual thighs invite
the thrilling rain the slender paramour
Stand forth,John Keats! On earth thou knew'st me not;
Steadfast through all the storms of passion,thou,
flotsam and jetsam
are gentlemen poeds
urseappeal netsam
our spinsters and coeds)
thoroughly bretish
they scout the inhuman
"Gay" is the captivating cognomen of a Young Woman of cambridge,
mass.
gee i like to think of dead it means nearer because deeper firmer
guilt is the cause of more disorders
than history's most obscene marorders
hate blows a bubble of despair into
hugeness world system universe and bang
-fear buries a tomorrow under woe
here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when judgment day comes
God will find six crumbs
here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
i am so glad and very
merely my fourth will cure
the laziest self of weary
the hugest sea of shore
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
i go to this window
just as day dissolves
when it is twilight(and
looking up in fear
i see the new moon
thinner than a hair)
i have found what you are like
the rain
(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i shall imagine life
is not worth dying,if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain
but though mankind persuades
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovéd colonel (trig
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn't a lie,
Life would be delight,-
kumrads die because they're told)
kumrads die before they're old
(kumrads aren't afraid to die
kumrads don't
and kumrads won't
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
lily has a rose
(i have none)
"don't cry dear violet
you may take mine"
"o how how how
could i ever wear it now
listen
beloved
i dreamed
it appeared that you thought to
escape me and became a great
lily atilt on
insolent
little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
Me up at does
out of the floor
quietly Stare
a poisoned mouse
still who alive
is asking What
have i done that
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
M in a vicious world-to love virtue
A in a craven world-to have courage
R in a treacherous world-to prove loyal
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
moan
(is)
ing
the she of the
sea
un
der a who
a he a moon a
magic out
of the black this which of
one street leaps quick
mr youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty
each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party
mrs
& mr across the way are kind of
afraid)afraid
of what(of
a crazy man)don't
ask me how i know(a he of head
my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my girl's tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
n(o)w
the
how
dis(appeared cleverly)world
iS Slapped:with;liGhtninG
!
at
which(shal)lpounceupcrackw(ill)jumps
of
THuNdeRB
nobody loses all the time
i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
nobody loved this
he)with its
of eye stuck
into a rock of
forehead.No
body
loved
big that quick
sharp
thick snake of a
nothing false and possible is love
(who's imagined,therefore is limitless)
love's to giving as to keeping's give;
now does our world descend
the path to nothingness
(cruel now cancels kind;
friends turn to enemies)
therefore lament,my dream
Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and
now is a ship
which captain am
sails out of sleep
steering for dream
now what were motionless move(exists no
miracle mightier than this:to feel)
poor worlds must merely do,which then are done;
o sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
of all the blessings which to man
kind progress doth impart
one stands supreme i mean the an
imal without a heart.
(of Ever-Ever Land i speak
sweet morons gather roun'
who does not dare to stand or sit
may take it lying down)
dreaming in marble all the castle lay
like some gigantic ghost-flower born of night
blossoming in white towers to the moon,
(once like a spark)
if strangers meet
life begins-
not poor not rich
(only aware)
kind neither
nor cruel
(only complete)
one's not half two. It's two are halves of one:
which halves reintegrating,shall occur
no death and any quantity;but than
Picasso
you give us Things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind
you make us shrill
presents always
pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)
n
OthI
n
g can
s
urPas
s
the m
y
SteR
y
of
s
tilLnes
s
take it from me kiddo
believe me
my country, 'tis of
you, land of the Cluett
Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint
proud of his scientific attitude
and liked the prince of wales wife wants to die
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
PPEGORHRASS
eringint(o-
aThe):l
eA
!p:
red-rag and pink-flag
blackshirt and brown
strut-mince and stink-brag
have all come to town
some like it shot
she being Brand
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having
thoroughly oiled the universal
silence
.is
a
looking
bird:the
turn
ing;edge,of
life
(inquiry before snow
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
six
are in a room's dark around)
five
(are all dancesing singdance all are
three
with faces made of cloud dancing and
three
Spring is past, and Summer's past,
Autumn's come, and going;
Weather seems as though at last
We might get some snowing.
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
speaking of love(of
which Who knows the
meaning;or how dreaming
becomes
if your heart's mind)i
guess a grassblade
spoke joe to jack
leave her alone
she's not your gal
jack spoke to joe
's left crashed
pal dropped
o god alice
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
spring omnipotent goddess Thou
dost stuff parks
with overgrown pimply
chevaliers and gumchewing giggly
damosels Thou dost
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
the Noster was a ship of swank
(as gallant as they come)
until she hit a mine and sank
just off the coast of Sum
the way to hump a cow is not
to get yourself a stool
but draw a line around the spot
and call it beautifool
there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
there is a here and
that here was a
town(and the town is
so aged the ocean
wanders the streets are so
this evangelist
buttons with his big gollywog voice
the kingdomofheaven up behind and crazily
this is the garden:colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
this(let's remember)day died again and
again;whose golden,crimson dooms conceive
an oceaning abyss of orange dream
Thy fingers make early flowers of
all things.
thy hair mostly the hours love:
a smoothness which
sings,saying
Tumbling-hair
picker of buttercups
violets
dandelions
And the big bullying daisies
through the field wonderful
up into the silence the green
silence with a white earth in it
you will(kiss me)go
out into the morning the young
voices to voices,lip to lip
i swear(to noone everyone)constitutes
undying;or whatever this and that petal confutes...
(will you teach a
wretch to live
straighter than a needle)
ask
her
ask
when
(ask and
ask
and ask
again and)ask a
)when what hugs stopping earth than silent is
more silent than more than much more is or
total sun oceaning than any this
warped this perhapsy
stumbl
i
NgflounderpirouettiN
g
:seized(
tatterdemalion
dow
nupfloatsw
oon
InG
what if a much of a which of a wind
gives the truth to summer's lie;
bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun
when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-
when god lets my body be
From each brave eye shall sprout a tree
fruit dangles therefrom
the purpled world will dance upon
when hair falls off and eyes blur And
thighs forget(when clocks whisper
and night shouts)When minds
when life is quite through with
and leaves say alas,
much is to do
for the swallow,that closes
a flight in the blue;
when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
and the sun strikes to gain a living wage -
Where's Madge then,
Madge and her men?
buried with
Alice in her hair,
(but if you ask the rain
he'll not tell where.)
yes is a pleasant country:
if's wintry
(my lovely)
let's open the year
both is the very weather
(not either)
my treasure,
ygUDuh
ydoan
yunnuhstan
ydoan o
yunnuhstand dem
yguduh ged
yunnuhstan dem doidee
yguduh ged riduh
ydoan o nudn
yonder deadfromtheneckup graduate of a
somewhat obscure to be sure university spends
her time looking picturesque under
you being in love
will tell who softly asks in love,
am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely
you said Is
there anything which
is dead or alive more beautiful
than my body,to have in your fingers
you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
youful
larger
of smallish)
Humble a
rosily
,nimblest;
c-urlin-g
noworld
Silent is
blue
(sleep!new
girlgold
your little voice
Over the wires came leaping
and i felt suddenly
dizzy
With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers
