Yes, okay—I’ve already given you a poem
by e.e. cummings this month. But that was for the series on poetry from the
First World War.
Now I’m giving you a couple just because they’re
wonderful.
As far as cummings goes, “All in green went my love riding”
is positively un-cummings. It uses capitalization and standard poem format. And
punctuation. It’s lyrical and ordered, anomalous from most of his other work. It
was published in 1916, when he was 22, so it was before he started pushing the
format envelope.
“All in green went my love riding”
All
in green went my love riding
on
a great horse of gold
into
the silver dawn.
four
lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the
merry deer ran before.
Fleeter
be they than dappled dreams
the
swift sweet deer
the
red rare deer.
Four
red roebuck at a white water
the
cruel bugle sang before.
Horn
at hip went my love riding
riding
the echo down
into
the silver dawn.
four
lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the
level meadows ran before.
Softer
be they than slippered sleep
the
lean lithe deer
the
fleet flown deer.
Four
fleet does at a gold valley
the
famished arrow sang before.
Bow
at belt went my love riding
riding
the mountain down
into
the silver dawn.
four
lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the
sheer peaks ran before.
Paler
be they than daunting death
the
sleek slim deer
the
tall tense deer.
Four
tall stags at the green mountain
the
lucky hunter sang before.
All
in green went my love riding
on
a great horse of gold
into
the silver dawn.
Four
lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my
heart fell dead before.
Speaking as someone who’s read a lot of medieval poetry,
this strongly resembles the world you find there—the beloved all in green, the
natural setting, the deer, the hunting dogs as a sort of refrain, the lover
struck dead with love. Definitely medieval.
Compare the lyrical lady of “All in green” with the ones
in “the Cambridge Ladies”. Shallow, useless, brittle—you do not want to know
these women. It’s hard to pinpoint the most damning modifier here—possibly “comfortable
minds”; Jeez—is there anything worse than that?
“the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls”
the
Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are
unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also,
with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,
unscented shapeless spirited)
they
believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are
invariably interested in so many things—
at
the present writing one still finds
delighted
fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps.
While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal
of Mrs. N and Professor D
....
the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge
if sometimes in its box of
sky
lavender and cornerless, the
moon
rattles like a fragment of angry candy
But you see why I keep coming back to cummings. He’s been
with me since high school; I just cannot get enough of him.
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