Poem: “Portraits V” by Edward Estlin Cummings

Tulips and Chimneys – 1923

Download PDF

the young
man sitting
in Dick Mid’s Place
said to Death

teach me of her
Thy yonder servant who
in Thy very house silently
sits looking beyond the

kissing and the striving of
that old man who at her
redstone mouth renews his
childhood

and He
said
“willingly
for the tale is short

it was
i think yourself delivered into
both my hands herself to
always keep”

always?
the young
man sitting in Dick Mid’s
Place

asked
“always”
Death
said

“then as i recollect her
girlhood was by the kindly
lips and body fatherly of a
romantic tired business man

somewhat tweaked and dinted
then
did my servant
become of the company of those

ladies with faces painteaten
and bodies lightly
desperate certainly wherefrom
departed is youth’s indispensable

illusion”

If you liked this article, subscribe , put likes, write comments!

Share on social networks

Visit us on Facebook or Twitter