Transcriber's Note: Idiosyncrasies of spelling, punctuation, andcapitalization have been retained as they appear in the original.
PUELLA MEA
BY E.E. CUMMINGS
COPYRIGHT MCMXXIII BY E E CUMMINGS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Harun Omar and Master Hafiz
keep your dead beautiful ladies.
Mine is a little lovelier
than any of your ladies were.
In her perfectest array
my lady, moving in the day,
is a little stranger thing
than crisp Sheba with her king
in the morning wandering.
Through the young and awkward hours
my lady perfectly moving,
through the new world scarce astir
my fragile lady wandering
in whose perishable poise
is the mystery of Spring
(with her beauty more than snow
dexterous and fugitive
my very frail lady drifting
distinctly, moving like a myth
in the uncertain morning, with
April feet like sudden flowers
and all her body filled with May)
—moving in the unskilful day
my lady utterly alive,
to me is a more curious thing
...