Spring

5

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
               fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
         beauty                  how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
         (but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
              thou answerest
them only with
                                spring)

E. E. Cummings