"Chanson Innocente" by E. E. Cummings

"Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush." So wrote American editor and columnist Doug Larson. Here is the untitled poem "in Just-," the first of the "Chansons Innocentes" by American poet E. E. Cummings in his book Tulips & Chimneys (1923).


in Just-
spring        when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
        the

             goat-footed

balloonMan        whistles
far
and
wee

Tulips