Selected Poems E.E. Cummings

into the strenuous briefness

I A CHILD’S WORLD

Days of Innocence

1 who are you,little i

3 who sharpens every dull

4 O the sun comes up-up-up in the opening

5 maggie and milly and molly and may

6 at the head of this street a gasping organ is waving moth-eaten

7 who were so dark of heart they might not speak

Adult Nursery Rhymes

2 if everything happens that can’t be done

3 as freedom is a breakfastfood

4 what if a much of a which of a wind

5 when faces called flowers float out of the ground

II SWEET SPONTANEOUS EARTH

1 spring omnipotent goddess thou dost

2 O sweet spontaneous

4 Spring is like a perhaps hand

5 the sky a silver

6 now winging selves sing sweetly,while ghosts (there

Other Seasons, Other Creatures

2 beyond the stolid iron pond

4 beyond the brittle towns asleep

5 may my heart always be open to little

6 now comes the good rain farmers pray for(and

7 a wind has blown the rain away and blown

9 when god lets my body be

III THE POETRY OF THE EYE

The Creative Process

The Cubist Break-Up

8 r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

12 birds(
here,inven

              13 (b
eLl
      s?
          bE

1 the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

2 if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have

3 my father moved through dooms of love

4 Buffalo Bill’s

5 little joe gould has lost his teeth and doesn’t know where

V LOVE AND ITS MYSTERIES

2 My love is building a building

3 somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

4 chérie
the very,picturesque,last Day

5 along the brittle treacherous bright streets

6 you shall above all things be glad and young.

7 yes is a pleasant country:

8 it is so long since my heart has been with yours

9 your homecoming will be my home-coming—

10 one’s not half two. It’s two are halves of one:

11 silently if,out of not knowable

12 hate blows a bubble of despair into

13 being to timelessness as it’s to time,

VI ACHIEVING THE TOGETHER-COLOURED INSTANT

1 my girl’s tall with hard long eyes

2 O It’s Nice To Get Up In,the slipshod mucous kiss

3 (ponder,darling,these busted statues

4 she being Brand

6 “think of it:not so long ago

8 sometimes i am alive because with

9 i like my body when it is with your

VII KITTY, MIMI, MARJ, AND FRIENDS

2 twentyseven bums give a prostitute the once

3 goodby Betty,don’t remember me

4 little ladies more

5 “kitty”. sixteen,5′1″,white,prostitute.

6 the poem her belly marched through me as

7 when you rang at Dick Mid’s Place

8 nearer:breath of my breath:take not thy tingling

9 the dirty colours of her kiss have just

10 in making Marjorie god hurried

11 between the breasts

VIII THE DIMENSIONS OF BEING HUMAN

1 since feeling is first

2 all ignorance toboggans into know

3 the trick of finding what you didn’t lose

4 there are so many tictoc

5 what time is it?it is by every star

6 wherelings whenlings

7 conceive a man,should he have anything

8 sonnet entitled how to run the world)

9 dying if fine)but Death

IX MYTHS AND ALLEGORIES

1 anyone lived in a pretty how town

2 the Noster was a ship of swank

3 one(Floatingly)arrive

4 all in green went my love riding

5 here is little Effie’s head

6 the wind is a Lady with

7 death(having lost)put on his universe

8 don’t get me wrong oblivion

10 it’s over a(see just

              11 Tumbling-hair
                     picker of buttercups
                                                         violets

12 in heavenly realms of hellas dwelt

13 now two old ladies sit peacefully knitting,

14 let us suspect,chérie,this not very big

X URBAN GLIMPSES

1 the hours rise up putting off stars and it is

2 but the other

                3 logeorge
           lo
              wellifitisn’teddy   how’s the boy

4 the skinny voice

5 a man who had fallen among thieves

6 i was sitting in mcsorley’s. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing.

7 that melancholy

8 Paris;this April sunset completely utters;

XI TARGETS OF SATIRE

1 a Woman
of bronze

2 my sweet old etcetera

3 “next to of course god america i

4 i sing of Olaf glad and big

1 F is for foetus(a

2 a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse

3 the way to hump a cow is not

Communism and Fascism

1 (of Ever-Ever Land i speak

2 kumrads die because they’re told)

3 red-rag and pink-flag

4 THANKSGIVING (1956)

The Literary Scene

1 POEM,OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL

2 what does little Ernest croon

3 flotsam and jetsam

4 BALLAD OF AN INTELLECTUAL

Misanthropic Moods

1 when serpents bargain for the right to squirm

2 pity this busy monster,manunkind,

3 Space being(don’t forget to remember) Curved

4 (“fire stop thief help murder save the world”

5 Jehovah buried,Satan dead,

Self-Excoriation

1 a total stranger one black day

2 so many selves(so many fiends and gods

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

Religious Leanings

1 i thank You God for most this amazing

2 i am a little church(no great cathedral)

3 it is winter a moon in the afternoon

4 from spiralling ecstatically this

Whispers of Mortality

1 old age sticks

2 for prodigal read generous

3 enter no(silence is the blood whose flesh

4 now does our world descend

5 all nearness pauses,while a star can grow

7 when life is quite through with

8 in time of daffodils(who know

9 Now i lay(with everywhere around)

life is more true than reason will deceive

Index of Titles and Dates of Publication

Also by E. E. Cummings