("annie died the other day...")

FOUNDED IN 1912 BY HARRIET MONROE

VOLUME XCIX NUMBER 2

NOVEMBER 1961

E. E. CUMMINGS

SEVEN POEMS*

timeless

ly this

(merely and whose

not

numerable leaves are

fall

i

ng)he

* Copyright 1961 by E. E. Cummings.

StandS

lift

ing against the

shrieking

sky such one

ness as

con

founds

all itcreating winds

E. E. CUMMINGS

if seventy were young

and death uncommon

(forgiving not divine,

to err inhuman)

or any thine a mine

-dingdong:dongding-

to say would be to sing

if broken hearts were whole

and cowards heroes

(the popular the wise,

a weed a tearose)

and every minus plus

-fare ill: fare well-

a frown would be a smile

if sorrowful were gay

(today tomorrow,

doubting believing and

to lend to borrow)

or any foe a friend

-cry nay:cry yea-

november would be may

that you and i'd be quite

-come such perfection-

another i and you,

is a deduction

which (be it false or true)

disposes me to shoot

doogooding folk on sight

for any ruffian of the sky

your kingbird doesn't give a damn-

his royal warcry is I AM

and he's the soul of chivalry

in terror of whose furious beak

(as sweetly singing creatures know)

cringes the hugest heartless hawk

and veers the vast most crafty crow

your kingbird doesn't give a damn

for murderers of high estate

whose mongrel creed is Might Makes Right

-his royal warcry is I AM

true to his mate his chicks his friends

he loves because he cannot fear

(you see it in the way he stands

and looks and leaps upon the air)

E. E. CUMMINGS

pity his how illimitable plight

who dies to be at any moment born-

some for whom crumbs of colour can create

precision more than angels fear to learn

and even fiends: or, if he paints with sound,

newly one moving cadence may release

the fragrance of a freedom which no mind

contrives (but certainly each spirit is)

and partially imagine whose despair

when every silence will not make a dream

speak; or if to no millionth metaphor

opens the simple agony of time

-small wonder such a monster's fellowmen

miscalled are happy should his now go then

without the mercy of

your eyes your

voice your

ways (o very most my shining love)

how more than dark i am,

no song (no

thing) no

silence ever told; it has no name-

but should this namelessness

(completely

fleetly)

vanish, at the infinite precise

thrill of your beauty, then

my lost my

dazed my

whereful selves they put on here again

-to livingest one star

as small these

all these

thankful (hark) birds singing wholly are

B. B. CUMMINGS

annie died the other day

never was there such a lay-

whom, among her dollies, dad

first ("don't tell your mother") had;

making annie slightly mad

but very wonderful in bed

-saints and satyrs, go your way

youths and maidens: let us pray

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

sky (the all the

any merry every pretty each

bird sings birds sing

gay-be-gay because today's today) the

romp cries i and the me purrs

you and the gentle

who-horns says-does moo-woo

(the prance with the

three white its stimpstamps)

the grintgrunt wugglewiggle

champychumpchomps yes

the speckled strut begins to scretch and

scratch-scrutch

and scritch(while

the no-she-yes-he fluffies tittle

tattle did-he-does-she) & the

ree ray rye roh

rowster shouts

rawrOO