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O Distinct

E. E. Cummings

O Distinct
Lady of my unkempt adoration
if I have made
a fragile curtain

song under the window of your soul
it is not like any songs
(the singers the others
they have been faithful

to many things and which
die
i have been sometimes true
to Nothing and which lives

they were fond of the handsome
moon       never spoke ill of the
pretty stars       and to
the serene the complicated

and the obvious
they were faithful
and which i despise,
frankly

admitting i have been true
only to the noise of worms
in the eligible day
under the unaccountable sun)

Distinct Lady
swiftly take
my fragile certain song
that we may watch together

how behind the doomed
exact smile of life’s
placid obscure palpable
carnival where to a normal

melody of probable violins dance
the square virtues with the oblong sins
perfectly
gesticulate the accurate

strenuous lips of incorruptible
Nothing       under the ample
sun, under the insufficient
day under the noise of worms
Online text © 1998-2010 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From XLI Poems | Dial Press, 1925
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