I Carry Your Heart with Me by E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings’s “I Carry Your Heart with Me,” often described as one of the most talked about love poems of the modern times, was first published in 1952. In this poem, Cummings focuses on the power and unity of love, and how love connects not just two individuals but also the world at large.
I Carry Your Heart with Me
BY E. E. CUMMINGS
I carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Analysis of Cummings’s “I Carry Your Heart with Me”
Cummings’s “I Carry Your Heart with Me” is one of the most prominent love poems of modern times, first published in 1952. It is evident from this poem that Cummings had a soft spot for topics having to do with love.
The speaker in the poem is completely in love with his significant other and says that their relationship is nothing like others. The poem relates to not just two lovers, but to any relationship.
In the first part of the poem, the speaker claims that whatever he does, he does it for his lover, that his lover is with him always, and that he is always thinking about his lover. Cummings exaggerates the way the speaker loves his significant other.
In the second stanza, the speaker says that the only thing that scares him is losing his lover, that his lover is his everything, and that he hopes his lover never changes and their love never changes as well. Cummings is directly saying that the speaker’s significant other is his fate and his world. He further uses personification to depict the sun and moon’s actions to create a greater image of the love the speaker has.
In the third stanza, Cummings shows that people are afraid to commit to a relationship and this hinders the ability of love to shine and blossom. Cummings here uses symbolism and hyperbole. The roots and buds represent the problems people have with falling in love. The hyperbole is the issue with falling in love and relationship that is compared to the wonder that keeps stars apart which draws attention to why love is so scary in the world. In the last line, repetition is used to continue the idea of the love the speaker has. Cummings uses first person to make the poem more personal and sentimental.
