“maggie and milly and mollie and may” by E. E. Cummings
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
I don’t usually provide commentary on poems here, but I love this one especially.
As usual with Cummings, a few words on form are warranted. Notice how “to play one day,” and “like a you or a me” are in parentheses. The ands in the poem are all punctuated differently, the way you’d catch your breath when speaking. A childlike whimsy gives the poem a lightness. It reads like a friend telling you a story.
Before the last couplet, the poem seems to be all scene setting. These four girls are at the beach. They are all doing different things. Each thing is described simply and always anchored to the girls themselves: (“remember her troubles”, “horrible thing”.)
In the fourth couplet, the text seems to shift under us.
as small as a world, and as large as alone
The world can feel small. And God knows how vast loneliness is. In bringing this up in this context, Cummings opens an interior dimension to the poem. And interestingly, where the poem has so far described the simple activities, this interiority is within me, the reader. To understand what it means to be “as large as alone” is to withdraw into myself, to simulate the feeling of loneliness, and then to look around and feel how insurmountably big it can be. Saying that loneliness is large — as large as a world is small — made this poem my all-time favourite.
Then, the final couplet tells us what this poem is about.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
This couplet comes as a surprise. What a strange way to end a lighthearted poem about girls spending their day at the beach! But it has a big job since it recontextualizes the entire poem. (The F in For is the only capital letter in the poem, indicating that it’s starting a proclamation.)
The scene setting isn’t just scene setting after all. It doesn't just say that Maggie found a sweet singing shell, but that she found it because she is someone who looks for it when going to the beach. Milly is drawn by empathy. Molly is full of fear. The description of the smooth round stone shifted the tone rather abruptly but there is a reason. As much as I love the loneliness reading, it is here we realize that Cummings described the stone as being “as small as a world, and as large as alone” because it is how May is: a world complete and contained in herself. The same way the may couplet pulled me inwards, this last couplet zooms out and gives interiority to all four girls, tying their actions to their identities: the kind of people we are shapes the experiences that we have.
If we missed this reading in the first few couplets, the poem asks, then how often do we overlook this in others, or in ourselves? The tasks of life seem no less mundane than a day at the beach. How do what I do and how I feel reflect who I am? More strongly, to say For whatever we lose is to acknowledge the caprices of chance and, still, to maintain that, above all else, the way we perceive life is largely ours even if the life we live often isn't.
This poem follows me to every beach I go.