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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

O Sweet Spontaneous

E. E. Cummings

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)
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Tulips and Chimneys | New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923
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