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Paris: Notre Dame, pencil sketch by E. E. Cummings
Houghton Library, Harvard University

XII

___________

ENDINGS

TOWARD THE END of life, E. E. Cummings was considerably sobered by the aches and stresses of aging. He suffered severely from arthritis and was forced to wear a metal-braced corset that he called “The Iron Maiden.” Other ills and physical deteriorations caused him additional discomfort and, on two occasions, surgery. The decline in his physical condition probably accounts for the increasing harshness in his satires and his readiness, like Mark Twain in his last years, to denounce the human race. But it also brought him to recognize, from time to time, that he shared with other human beings the inclination to selfish behavior and unjustified criticism of others. Thus, poems begin to crop up that acknowledge his own faults. They usually express a divided view of human nature, that human beings are half angel and half demon—as he expressed it in the poems “so many selves(so many fiends and gods” and “no man,if men are gods.”

This is a long-standing Christian concept, and indeed Cummings turned toward religion in his later years. “As I grow older, I tend toward piety,” he acknowledged one Christmas season in 1948. His journals contain occasional wrestlings with religious belief and a great many prayers to “le bon Dieu.” Poems like “i thank You God for most this amazing” and “i am a little church” are much in keeping with this turn of mind. But his reading also extended into Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Taoism, which appealed to a mystical tendency in Cummings that was quite congruent with his long-time interest in Emerson and New England Transcendentalism. Thus, his religious outlook continued to return to the Unitarianism of his father, an undogmatic position, which nevertheless held a concept of God as omnipresent in the natural world who, although incomprehensible to the understanding of ordinary mortals, was most closely approached by being in tune with nature.

Cummings’ poems about the end of life show his acceptance of being a part of the natural process, which becomes, at length, dissolution into the “mystery to be.” There are some expressions of regret about the loss of powers in old age—to have to make do with “contentment” rather than “ecstasy” and to substitute “caution” for “curiosity,” as he says in the poem “for prodigal read generous.” But the optimism that colored his early life surrounds his contemplations of death and afterlife, as we can observe when he says (in “all nearness pauses,while a star can grow”) “if a world ends/more than all worlds begin to(see?)begin,” or when he envisions himself finally lying down “to dream of Spring.”

 

Self-Excoriation

1

a total stranger one black day

knocked living the hell out of me—

who found forgiveness hard because

my(as it happened)self he was

—but now that fiend and i are such

immortal friends the other’s each

2

so many selves(so many fiends and gods

each greedier than every)is a man

(so easily one in another hides;

yet man can,being all,escape from none)

so huge a tumult is the simplest wish:

so pitiless a massacre the hope

most innocent(so deep’s the mind of flesh

and so awake what waking calls asleep)

so never is most lonely man alone

(his briefest breathing lives some planet’s year,

his longest life’s a heartbeat of some sun;

his least unmotion roams the youngest star)

—how should a fool that calls him “I” presume

to comprehend not numerable whom?

 

3

no man,if men are gods;but if gods must

be men,the sometimes only man is this

(most common,for each anguish is his grief;

and,for his joy is more than joy,most rare)

a fiend,if fiends speak truth;if angels burn

by their own generous completely light,

an angel;or(as various worlds he’ll spurn

rather than fail immeasurable fate)

coward,clown,traitor,idiot,dreamer,beast—

such was a poet and shall be and is

—who’ll solve the depths of horror to defend

a sunbeam’s architecture with his life:

and carve immortal jungles of despair

to hold a mountain’s heartbeat in his hand

 

Religious Leanings

1

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no

of all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

2

i am a little church(no great cathedral)

far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities

—i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,

i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;

my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving

(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children

whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing

birth and glory and death and resurrection:

over my sleeping self float flaming symbols

of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic

world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature

—i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;

i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to

merciful Him Whose only now is forever:

standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence

(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

3

it is winter a moon in the afternoon

and warm air turning into January darkness up

through which sprouting gently,the cathedral

leans its dreamy spine against thick sunset

i perceive in front of our lady a ring of people

a brittle swoon of centrifugally expecting

faces clumsily which devours a man,three cats,

five white mice,and a baboon.

O a monkey with a sharp face waddling carefully

the length of this padded pole;a monkey attached

by a chain securely to this always talking

individual,mysterious witty hatless.

Cats which move smoothly from neck to neck of bottles,cats

smoothly willowing out and in between bottles,who step smoothly

and rapidly along this pole over five squirming

mice;or leap through hoops of fire,creating smoothness.

People stare,the drunker applaud

while twilight takes the sting out of the vermilion

jacket of nodding hairy Jacqueline who is given a mouse

to hold lovingly,

our lady what do you think of this?   Do your proud fingers and

your arms tremble remembering something squirming fragile

and which had been presented unto you by a mystery?

...the cathedral recedes into weather without answering

4

from spiralling ecstatically this

proud nowhere of earth’s most prodigious night

blossoms a newborn babe:around him,eyes

—gifted with every keener appetite

than mere unmiracle can quite appease—

humbly in their imagined bodies kneel

(over time space doom dream while floats the whole

perhapsless mystery of paradise)

mind without soul may blast some universe

to might have been,and stop ten thousand stars

but not one heartbeat of this child;nor shall

even prevail a million questionings

against the silence of his mother’s smile

—whose only secret all creation sings

5

brIght

bRight s??? big

(soft)

soft near calm

(Bright)

calm st?? holy

(soft briGht deep)

yeS near sta? calm star big yEs

alone

(wHo

Yes

near deep whO big alone soft near

deep calm deep

????Ht ?????T)

Who(holy alone)holy(alone holy)alone

 

Whispers of Mortality

1

old age sticks

up Keep

Off

signs)&

youth yanks them

down(old

age

cries No

Tres)&(pas)

youth laughs

(sing

old age

scolds Forbid

den Stop

Must

n’t Don’t

&)youth goes

right on

gr

owing old

2

for prodigal read generous

—for youth read age—

read for sheer wonder mere surprise

(then turn the page)

contentment read for ecstasy

—for poem prose—

caution for curiosity

(and close your eyes)

3

enter no(silence is the blood whose flesh

is singing)silence:but unsinging.   In

spectral such hugest how hush,one

dead leaf stirring makes a crash

—far away(as far as alive)lies

april;and i breathe-move-and-seem some

perpetually roaming whylessness—

autumn has gone:will winter never come?

O come,terrible anonymity;enfold

phantom me with the murdering minus of cold

—open this ghost with millionary knives of wind—

scatter his nothing all over what angry skies and

gently

           (very whiteness:absolute peace,

never imaginable mystery)

                                               descend

4

now does our world descend

the path to nothingness

(cruel now cancels kind;

friends turn to enemies)

therefore lament,my dream

and don a doer’s doom

create is now contrive;

imagined, merely know

(freedom:what makes a slave)

therefore,my life,lie down

and more by most endure

all that you never were

hide,poor dishonoured mind

who thought yourself so wise;

and much could understand

concerning no and yes:

if they’ve become the same

it’s time you unbecame

where climbing was and bright

is darkness and to fall

(now wrong’s the only right

since brave are cowards all)

therefore despair,my heart

and die into the dirt

but from this endless end

of briefer each our bliss—

where seeing eyes go blind

(where lips forget to kiss)

where everything’s nothing

—arise,my soul;and sing

5

all nearness pauses,while a star can grow

all distance breathes a final dream of bells;

perfectly outlined against afterglow

are all amazing the and peaceful hills

(not where not here but neither’s blue most both)

and history immeasurably is

wealthier by a single sweet day’s death:

as not imagined secrecies comprise

goldenly huge whole the upfloating moon.

Time’s a strange fellow;

                                         more he gives than takes

(and he takes all)nor any marvel finds

quite disappearance but some keener makes

losing,gaining

                         —love! if a world ends

more than all worlds begin to(see?)begin

6

what is

a

voyage

?

up

upup:go

ing

downdowndown

com;ing won

der

ful sun

moon stars the all,& a

(big

ger than

big

gest could even

begin to be)dream

of;a thing:of

a creature who’s

O

cean

(everywhere

nothing

but light and dark;but

never forever

& when)un

til one strict

here of amazing most

now,with what

thousands of (hundreds

of)millions of

CriesWhichAreWings

7

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 love’s had his tears out,

perhaps shall pass

a million years

(while a bee dozes

on the poppies,the dears;

when all’s done and said,and

under the grass

lies her head

by oaks and roses

deliberated.)

8

in time of daffodils(who know

the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze

our now and here with paradise)

forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond

whatever mind may comprehend,

remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be

(when time from time shall set us free)

forgetting me,remember me

9

Now i lay(with everywhere around)

me(the great dim deep sound

of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and

what a gently welcoming darkestness—

now i lay me down(in a most steep

more than music)feeling that sunlight is

(life and day are)only loaned:whereas

night is given(night and death and the rain

are given;and given is how beautifully snow)

now i lay me down to dream of(nothing

i or any somebody or you

can begin to begin to imagine)

something which nobody may keep,

now i lay me down to dream of Spring

10

one

t

hi

s

snowflake

(a

   li

      ght

   in

g)

is upon a gra

v

es

t

one