Five Poems
The Dial
e. e. cummings Editor Scofield Thayer


-577-


FIVE POEMS
BY E. E. CUMMINGS


I



into the strenuous briefness
Life:
handorgans and April
darkness, friends


i charge laughing.
Into the hair-thin tints
of yellow dawn,
into the women-coloured twilight


i smilingly glide. I
into the big vermilion departure
swim, sayingly;


(Do you think?) the
i do, world
is probably made
of roses & hello:


(of solongs and, ashes)



-578-


   



II



O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the doting


      fingers of
prurient philosophies pinched
and poked


thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy


      beauty       how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy
knees squeezing and


buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
      but
true


to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover


      thou answerest


them only with


      spring



-579-


 



III



but the other
day i was passing a certain
gate       rain
fell       as it will


in spring
ropes
of silver gliding from sunny
thunder into freshness


as if god's flowers were
pulling upon bells of
gold       i looked
up


and
thought to myself       death
and will You with
elaborate fingers possibly touch


the pink hollyhock existence whose
pansy eyes look from morning till
night into the street
unchangingly       the always


old lady sitting in her
gentle window like
a reminiscence
partaken


softly       at whose gate smile
always the chosen
flowers of reminding



-580-


 



IV



in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman


whistles       far       and wee


and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old baloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and
      the
      goat-footed


baloonMan       whistles
far
and
wee


-581-


 



V



spring omnipotent goddess Thou
dost stuff parks
with overgrown pimply
chevaliers and gumchewing giggly


damosels Thou dost
persuade to serenade
his lady the musical tom-cat
Thou dost inveigle


into crossing sidewalks the
unwary june-bug and the frivolous
angleworm
Thou dost hang canary birds in parlour windows


Spring slattern of seasons
you have soggy legs
and a muddy petticoat
drowsy


is your hair your
eyes are sticky with
dream and you have a sloppy body from


being brought to bed of crocuses
when you sing in your whisky voice
the grass rises on the head of the earth
and all the trees are put on edge


spring
of the excellent jostle of
thy hips
and the superior



-582-



slobber of your breasts i
am so very fond that my
soul inside of me hollers
      for thou comest


and your hands are the snow and thy
fingers are the rain
and your
feet O your feet


freakish
feet feet incorrigible


ragging the world

 

 

 

 

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