Modernist Poems of the 1920s

e.e. cummings, “next to of course god america i" (1926)

"next to of course god america i

love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh

say can you see by the dawn's early my

country 'tis of centuries come and go

and are no more what of it we should worry

in every language even deafanddumb

thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry

by jingo by gee by gosh by gum

why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-

iful than these heroic happy dead

who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter

they did not stop to think they died instead

then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Claude McKay, “The White City” (1922)

I WILL not toy with it nor bend an inch.

Deep in the secret chambers of my heart

I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch

I bear it nobly as I live my part.

My being would be a skeleton, a shell,

If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,

And makes my heaven in the white world's hell,

Did not forever feed me vital blood.

I see the mighty city through a mist--

The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,

The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed,

The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,

The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,

Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate..

Don Marquis, “aesop revised by archy” (1927)

a wolf met a spring

lamb drinking

at a stream

and said to her

you are the lamb

that muddied this stream

all last year

so that i could not get

a clean fresh drink

i am resolved that

this outrage

shall not be enacted again

this season i am going

to kill you

just a minute said the lamb

i was not born last

year so it could not

have been i

the wolf then pulled

a number of other

arguments as to why the lamb

should die

but in each case the lamb

pretty innocent that she was

easily proved

herself guiltless

well well said the wolf

enough of that argument

you are right and i am wrong

but i am going to eat

you anyhow

because i am hungry

stop exclamation point

cried a human voice

and a man came over

the slope of the ravine

vile lupine marauder

you shall not kill that

beautiful and innocent

lamb for i shall save her

exit the wolf

left upper entrance

snarling

poor little lamb

continued our human hero

sweet tender little thing

it is well that i appeared

just when i did

it makes my blood boil

to think of the fright

to which you have been

subjected in another

moment i would have been

too late come home with me

and the lamb frolicked

about her new found friend

gambolling as to the sound

of a wordsworthian tabor

and leaping for joy

as if propelled by a stanza

from william blake

these vile and bloody wolves

went on our hero

in honest indignation

they must be cleared out

of the country

the meads must be made safe

for sheepocracy

and so jollying her along

with the usual human hokum

he led her to his home

and the son of a gun

did not even blush when

they passed the mint bed

gently he cut her throat

all the while inveigling

against the inhuman wolf

and tenderly he cooked her

and lovingly he sauced her

and meltingly he ate her

and piously he said a grace

thanking his gods

for their bountiful gifts to him

and after dinner

he sat with his pipe

before the fire meditating

on the brutality of wolves

and the injustice of

the universe

which allows them to harry

poor innocent lambs

and wondering if he

had not better

write to the paper

for as he said

for god s sake can t

something be done about it

archy