[Transcriber's Note: Idiosyncrasies of spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization have been retained as they appear in the original.]




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PUELLA MEA


BY E.E. CUMMINGS

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COPYRIGHT MCMXXIII BY E E CUMMINGS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA


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    Harun Omar and Master Hafiz
    keep your dead beautiful ladies.
    Mine is a little lovelier
    than any of your ladies were.

    In her perfectest array
    my lady, moving in the day,
    is a little stranger thing
    than crisp Sheba with her king
    in the morning wandering.

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        Through the young and awkward hours
    my lady perfectly moving,
    through the new world scarce astir
    my fragile lady wandering
    in whose perishable poise
    is the mystery of Spring
    (with her beauty more than snow
    dexterous and fugitive
    my very frail lady drifting
    distinctly, moving like a myth
    in the uncertain morning, with
    April feet like sudden flowers

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    and all her body filled with May)
    —moving in the unskilful day
    my lady utterly alive,
    to me is a more curious thing
    (a thing more nimble and complete)
    than ever to Judea’s king
    were the shapely sharp cunning
    and withal delirious feet
    of the Princess Salome
    carefully dancing in the noise
    of Herod’s silence, long ago.

    If she a little turn her head
    i know that i am wholly dead:
    nor ever did on such a throat
    the lips of Tristram slowly dote,
    La beale Isoud whose leman was.
    And if my lady look at me
    (with her eyes which like two elves
    incredibly amuse themselves)
    with a look of færie,
    perhaps a little suddenly
    (as sometimes the improbable
    beauty of my lady will)
    —at her glance my spirit shies
    rearing (as in the miracle
    of a lady who had eyes
    which the king’s horses might not kill.)

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        But should my lady smile, it were
    a flower of so pure surprise
    (it were so very new a flower,
    a flower so frail, a flower so glad)
    as trembling used to yield with dew
    when the world was young and new
    (a flower such as the world had
    in Springtime when the world was mad
    and Launcelot spoke to Guenever,
    a flower which most heavy hung
    with silence when the world was young
    and Diarmid looked in Grania’s eyes.)
        But should my lady’s beauty play
    at not speaking (somtimes as
    it will) the silence of her face
    doth immediately make
    in my heart so great a noise,
    as in the sharp and thirsty blood
    of Paris would not all the Troys
    of Helen’s beauty: never did
    Lord Jason (in impossible things
    victorious impossibly)
    so wholly burn, to undertake
    Medea’s rescuing eyes; nor he
    when swooned the white egyptian day
    who with Egypt’s body lay.

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    Lovely as those ladies were
    mine is a little lovelier.

    And if she speak in her frail way,
    it is wholly to bewitch
    my smallest thought with a most swift
    radiance wherein slowly drift
    murmurous things divinely bright;
    it is foolingly to smite
    my spirit with the lithe free twitch
    of scintillant space, with the cool writhe
    of gloom truly which syncopate
    some sunbeam’s skilful fingerings;
    it is utterly to lull
    with foliate inscrutable
    sweetness my soul obedient;
    it is to stroke my being with
    numbing forests frolicsome,
    fleetly mystical, aroam
    with keen creatures of idiom
    (beings alert and innocent
    very deftly upon which
    indolent miracles impinge)
    —it is distinctly to confute
    my reason with the deep caress
    of every most shy thing and mute,
    it is to quell me with the twinge
    of all living intense things.

        Never my soul so fortunate
    is (past the luck of all dead men
    and loving) as invisibly when
    upon her palpable solitude
    a furtive occult fragrance steals,
    a gesture of immaculate
    perfume—whereby (with fear aglow)
    my soul is wont wholly to know
    the poignant instantaneous fern
    whose scrupulous enchanted fronds
    toward all things intrinsic yearn,
    the immanent subliminal
    fern of her delicious voice
    (of her voice which always dwells
    beside the vivid magical
    impetuous and utter ponds
    of dream; and very secret food
    its leaves inimitable find
    beyond the white authentic springs,
    beyond the sweet instinctive wells,
    which make to flourish the minute
    spontaneous meadow of her mind)
    —the vocal fern, always which feels
    the keen ecstatic actual tread
    (and thereto perfectly responds)
    of all things exquisite and dead,
    all living things and beautiful.

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    (Caliph and king their ladies had
    to love them and to make them glad,
    when the world was young and mad,
    in the city of Bagdad—
    mine is a little lovelier
    than any of those ladies were.)

    Her body is most beauteous,
    being for all things amorous
    fashioned very curiously
    of roses and of ivory.
    The immaculate crisp head
    is such as only certain dead
    and careful painters love to use
    for their youngest angels (whose
    praising bodies in a row
    between slow glories fleetly go.)
    Upon a keen and lovely throat
    the strangeness of her face doth float,
    which in eyes and lips consists
    —always upon the mouth there trysts
    curvingly a fragile smile
    which like a flower lieth (while
    within the eyes is dimly heard
    a wistful and precarious bird.)

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    Springing from fragrant shoulders small,
    ardent, and perfectly withal
    smooth to stroke and sweet to see
    as a supple and young tree,
    her slim lascivious arms alight
    in skilful wrists which hint at flight
    —my lady’s very singular
    and slenderest hands moreover are
    (which as lilies smile and quail)
    of all things perfect the most frail.

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    (Whoso rideth in the tale
    of Chaucer knoweth many a pair
    of companions blithe and fair;
    who to walk with Master Gower
    in Confessio doth prefer
    shall not lack for beauty there,
    nor he that will amaying go
    with my lord Boccaccio—
    whoso knocketh at the door
    of Marie and of Maleore
    findeth of ladies goodly store
    whose beauty did in nothing err.
    If to me there shall appear
    than a rose more sweetly known,
    more silently than a flower,
    my lady naked in her hair—
    i for those ladies nothing care
    nor any lady dead and gone.)

    Each tapering breast is firm and smooth
    that in a lovely fashion doth
    from my lady’s body grow;
    as morning may a lily know,
    her petaled flesh doth entertain
    the adroit blood’s mysterious skein
    (but like some passionate earlier
    flower, the snow will oft utter,
    whereof the year has perfect bliss—
    for each breast a blossom is,
    which being a little while caressed
    its fragrance makes the lover blest.)
    Her waist is a most tiny hinge
    of flesh, a winsome thing and strange;
    apt in my hand warmly to lie
    it is a throbbing neck whereby
    to grasp the belly’s ample vase
    (that urgent urn which doth amass
    for whoso drinks, a dizzier wine
    than should the grapes of heaven combine
    with earth’s madness)—’tis a gate
    unto a palace intricate
    (whereof the luscious pillars rise
    which are her large and shapely thighs)
    in whose dome the trembling bliss
    of a kingdom wholly is.

        Beneath her thighs such legs are seen
    as were the pride of the world’s queen:
    each is a verb, miraculous
    inflected oral devious,
    beneath the body’s breathing noun
    (moreover the delicious frown
    of the grave great sensual knees
    well might any monarch please.)
    Each ankle is divinely shy;
    as if for fear you would espy
    the little distinct foot (if whose
    very minuteness doth abuse
    reason, why then the artificer
    did most exquisitely err.)

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    When the world was like a song
    heard behind a golden door,
    poet and sage and caliph had
    to love them and to make them glad
    ladies with lithe eyes and long
    (when the world was like a flower
    Omar Hafiz and Harun
    loved their ladies in the moon)
    —fashioned very curiously
    of roses and of ivory
    if naked she appear to me
    my flesh is an enchanted tree;
    with her lips’ most frail parting
    my body hears the cry of Spring,
    and with their frailest syllable
    its leaves go crisp with miracle.

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    Love!—maker of my lady,
    in that alway beyond this
    poem or any poem she
    of whose body words are afraid
    perfectly beautiful is,
    forgive these words which i have made.
    And never boast your dead beauties,
    you greatest lovers in the world!
    who with Grania strangely fled,
    who with Egypt went to bed,
    whom white-thighed Semiramis
    put up her mouth to wholly kiss—
    never boast your dead beauties,
    mine being unto me sweeter
    (of whose shy delicious glance
    things which never more shall be,
    perfect things of færie,
    are intense inhabitants;
    in whose warm superlative
    body do distinctly live
    all sweet cities passed away—
    in her flesh at break of day
    are the smells of Nineveh,
    in her eyes when day is gone
    are the cries of Babylon.)
    Diarmid Paris and Solomon,
    Omar Harun and Master Hafiz,
    to me your ladies are all one—
    keep your dead beautiful ladies.

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    Eater of all things lovely—Time!
    upon whose watering lips the world
    poises a moment (futile, proud,
    a costly morsel of sweet tears)
    gesticulates, and disappears—
    of all dainties which do crowd
    gaily upon oblivion
    sweeter than any there is one;
    to touch it is the fear of rhyme—
    in life’s very fragile hour
    (when the world was like a tale
    made of laughter and of dew,
    was a flight, a flower, a flame,
    was a tendril fleetly curled
    upon frailness) used to stroll
    (very slowly) one or two
    ladies like flowers made,
    softly used to wholly move
    slender ladies made of dream
    (in the lazy world and new
    sweetly used to laugh and love
    ladies with crisp eyes and frail,
    in the city of Bagdad.)

    Keep your dead beautiful ladies
    Harun Omar and Master Hafiz.


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This edition of E.E. Cummings’ Puella Mea with reproductions of
drawings and paintings by Klee is made possible through the kind
permission of Curt Valentin of Buchholz Gallery. The Modigliani drawing
is used by the courtesy of his publishers, in Milan, Italy. For the
drawing by Picasso thanks are due to Mary Callery, who consented to its
use. Kurt Roesch contributed his drawing which is the only illustration
expressly made for this book when it was decided to have work by other
modern masters in addition to the one drawing by the author himself,
which appears on the first text page of his poem.


S.A. JACOBS, THE GOLDEN EAGLE PRESS