Books: E. E. Cummings: Poet of the Heart

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and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,

in other lands where other songs be sung;

yet stand They here enraptured, as among

the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep

some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.

In the long run it is no easier to compare poets with poets than it is to compare peaches with blueberries. The epitaph that Cummings probably would have liked best had nothing to do with the critical ranking of poets. It was spoken by Fellow Poet Archibald MacLeish: "There are very few people who deserve the word poet. Cummings was one of them."