Independence Day Service

By invitation, I read (actually sang some of the lines) this "untitled" sonnet of e.e. cummings at an Independence Day celebration at the Unitarian Fellowship of Houston yesterday. I did not actually read the last line of the poem but instead drank from a glass of water and departed the pulpit.

"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 those 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

e.e. cummings
used without permission