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

PUELLA MEA

BY E.E. CUMMINGS

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.

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

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.)

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.

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.

(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.)

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.

(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.)

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.

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.

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.

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

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