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Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

The Rose

E. E. Cummings

the rose
is dying the
lips of an old man murder

the petals
hush

mysteriously invisible mourners move
with prose faces and sobbing,garments
The symbol of the rose

motionless
with grieving feet and
wings
mounts

against the margins of steep song
a stallion swetneess    ,the

lips of an old man murder
the petals.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Tulips and Chimneys | New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923
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