It Turns Cool as Evening Approaches

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
 
             fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
 
thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
 
        beauty      how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
 
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
         (but
true
 
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
 
             thou answerest
 
 
them only with
 
                              spring)
 

[O sweet spontaneous], by E. E. Cummings