100 Selected Poems Read online

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  Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.

  Copyright © 1923, 1925, 1931, 1935, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1954 by E. E. Cummings

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

  This edition does not include selections from 95 Poems published by Harcourt, Brace and Company

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 59-15193

  ISBN: 978-0-8021-3784-5 (pbk.)

  eISBN: 978-0-8021-9207-3

  Cover Design by Reg Perry

  Cover photograph by Marion Morehouse

  Grove Press

  an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  154 West 14th Street

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  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Note to the Reader

  Copyright

  Dedication

  TULIPS AND CHIMNEYS (1923)

  1. Thy fingers make early flowers of

  2. All in green went my love riding

  3. when god lets my body be

  4. in Just—

  5. O sweet spontaneous

  6. Buffalo Bill’s

  7. the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

  8. it may not always be so; and i say

  & {AND} (1925)

  9. suppose

  10. raise the shade

  11. here is little Effie’s head

  12. Spring is like a perhaps hand

  13. who knows if the moon’s

  14. i like my body when it is with your

  XLI POEMS (1925)

  15. little tree

  16. Humanity i love you

  is 5 (1926)

  17. POEM, OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL

  18. nobody loses all the time

  19. mr youse needn’t be so spry

  20. she being Brand

  21. MEMORABILIA

  22. a man who had fallen among thieves

  23. voices to voices, lip to lip

  24. “next to of course god america i

  25. my sweet old etcetera

  26. here’s a little mouse)and

  27. in spite of everything

  28. since feeling is first

  29. if i have made, my lady, intricate

  W {ViVa} (1931)

  30. i sing of Olaf glad and big

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

  32. a light Out)

  33. a clown s smirk in the skull of a baboon

  34. if i love You

  35. somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

  36. but if a living dance upon dead minds

  no thanks (1935)

  37. sonnet entitled how to run the world)

  38. may i feel said he

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

  40. kumrads die because they’re told)

  41. conceive a man, should he have anything

  42. here’s to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap

  43. what a proud dreamhorse pulling(smoothloomingly)through

  44. Jehovah buried. Satan dead,

  45. this mind made war

  46. love’s function is to fabricate unknownness

  47. death(having lost)put on his universe

  NEW POEMS {from Collected Poems} (1938)

  48. kind)

  49. (of Ever-Ever Land i speak

  50. this little bride & groom are

  51. my specialty is living said

  52. if i

  53. may my heart always be open to little

  54. you shall above all things be glad and young.

  50 POEMS (1940)

  55. flotsam and jetsam

  56. spoke joe to jack

  57. red-rag and pink-flag

  58. proud of his scientific attitude

  59. a pretty a day

  60. as freedom is a breakfastfood

  61. anyone lived in a pretty how town

  62. my father moved through dooms of love

  63. i say no world

  64. these children singing in stone a

  65. love is the every only god

  66. love is more thicker than forget

  67. hate blows a bubble of despair into

  68. what freedom’s not some under’s mere above

  1 X 1 {ONE TIMES ONE} (1944)

  69. of all the blessings which to man

  70. a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse

  71. a politician is an arse upon

  72. plato told

  73. pity this busy monster, manunkind,

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

  75. what if a much of a which of a wind

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

  77. when god decided to invent

  78. rain or hail

  79. let it go—the

  80. nothing false and possible is love

  81. except in your

  82. true lovers in each happening of their hearts

  83. yes is a pleasant country:

  84. all ignorance toboggans into know

  85. darling! because my blood can sing

  86. “sweet spring is your

  87. O by the by

  88. if everything happens that can’t be done

  XAIPE (1950)

  89. when serpents bargain for the right to squirm

  90. if a cheerfulest Elephantangelchild should sit

  91. o to be in finland

  92. no time ago

  93. to start, to hesitate; to stop

  94. if(touched by love’s own secret)we,like homing

  95. i thank You God for most this amazing

  96. the great advantage of being alive

  97. when faces called flowers float out of the ground

  98. love our so right

  99. now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have

  100. lum
inous tendril of celestial wish

  to marion

  1

  Thy fingers make early flowers of

  all things.

  thy hair mostly the hours love:

  a smoothness which

  sings, saying

  (though love be a day)

  do not fear, we will go amaying.

  thy whitest feet crisply are straying

  Always

  thy moist eyes are at kisses playing,

  whose strangeness much

  says; singing

  (though love be a day)

  for which girl art thou flowers bringing?

  To be thy lips is a sweet thing

  and small.

  Death, Thee i call rich beyond wishing

  if this thou catch,

  else missing.

  (though love be a day

  and life be nothing, it shall not stop kissing).

  2

  All in green went my love riding

  on a great horse of gold

  into the silver dawn.

  four lean hounds crouched low and smiling

  the merry deer ran before.

  Fleeter be they than dappled dreams

  the swift sweet deer

  the red rare deer.

  Four red roebuck at a white water

  the cruel bugle sang before.

  Horn at hip went my love riding

  riding the echo down

  into the silver dawn.

  four lean hounds crouched low and smiling

  the level meadows ran before.

  Softer be they than slippered sleep

  the lean lithe deer

  the fleet flown deer.

  Four fleet does at a gold valley

  the famished arrow sang before.

  Bow at belt went my love riding

  riding the mountain down

  into the silver dawn.

  four lean hounds crouched low and smiling

  the sheer peaks ran before.

  Paler be they than daunting death

  the sleek slim deer

  the tall tense deer.

  Four tall stags at a green mountain

  the lucky hunter sang before.

  All in green went my love riding

  on a great horse of gold

  into the silver dawn.

  four lean hounds crouched low and smiling

  my heart fell dead before.

  3

  when god lets my body be

  From each brave eye shall sprout a tree

  fruit that dangles therefrom

  the purpled world will dance upon

  Between my lips which did sing

  a rose shall beget the spring

  that maidens whom passion wastes

  will lay between their little breasts

  My strong fingers beneath the snow

  Into strenuous birds shall go

  my love walking in the grass

  their wings will touch with her face

  and all the while shall my heart be

  With the bulge and nuzzle of the sea

  4

  in Just-

  spring when the world is mud-

  luscious the little

  lame balloonman

  whistles far and wee

  and eddieandbill come

  running from marbles and

  piracies and it’s

  spring

  when the world is puddle-wonderful

  the queer

  old balloonman whistles

  far and wee

  and bettyandisbel come dancing

  from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

  it’s

  spring

  and

  the

  goat-footed

  balloonMan whistles

  far

  and

  wee

  5

  O sweet spontaneous

  earth how often have

  the

  doting

  fingers of

  prurient philosophers 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)

  6

  Buffalo Bill’s

  defunct

  who used to

  ride a watersmooth-silver

  stallion

  and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

  Jesus

  he was a handsome man

  and what i want to know is

  how do you like your blueeyed boy

  Mister Death

  7

  the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

  are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds

  (also, with the church’s protestant blessings

  daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)

  they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,

  are invariably interested in so many things—

  at the present writing one still finds

  delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?

  perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy

  scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D

  . . . . the Cambridge ladies do not care, above

  Cambridge if sometimes in its box of

  sky lavender and cornerless, the

  moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

  8

  it may not always be so; and i say

  that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch

  another’s, and your dear strong fingers clutch

  his heart, as mine in time not far away;

  if on another’s face your sweet hair lay

  in such a silence as i know, or such

  great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,

  stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

  if this should be, i say if this should be–

  you of my heart, send me a little word;

  that i may go unto him, and take his hands,

  saying, Accept all happiness from me.

  Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird

  sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

  9

  suppose

  Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

  young death sits in a café

  smiling, a piece of money held between

  his thumb and first finger

  (i say “will he buy flowers” to you

  and “Death is young

  life wears velour trousers

  life totters, life has a beard” i

  say to you who are silent.–“Do you see

  Life? he is there and here,

  or that, or this

  or nothing or an old man 3 thirds

  asleep, on his head

  flowers, always crying

  to nobody something about les

  roses les bluets

  yes,

  will He buy?

  Les belles bottes–oh hear

  , pas chères”)

  and my love slowly answered I think so. But

  I think I see someone else

  there is a lady, whose name is Afterwards

  she is sitting beside young death, is slender;

  likes flowers.

  10

  raise the shade

  will youse dearie?

  rain

  wouldn’t that

  get yer goat but

  we don’t care do

  we dearie we should
/>   worry about the rain

  huh

  dearie?

  yknow

  i’m

  sorry for awl the

  poor girls that

  gets up god

  knows when every

  day of their

  lives

  aint you

  oo-oo. dearie

  not so

  hard dear

  you’re killing me

  11

  here is little Effie’s head

  whose brains are made of gingerbread

  when the judgment day comes

  God will find six crumbs

  stooping by the coffinlid

  waiting for something to rise

  as the other somethings did—

  you imagine His surprise

  bellowing through the general noise

  Where is Effie who was dead?

  —to God in a tiny voice,

  i am may the first crumb said