Who Sharpens Every Dull
Who Sharpens Every Dull - meaning Summary
Reminding with His Bell
E. E. Cummings's "Who Sharpens Every Dull" imagines a bell-ringing visitor who sharpens dull lives, transforming routine into intensity. People—maids, mothers, widows, wives—respond differently: smiles, tears, or nothing, but the visitor remains indifferent to recompense. His sharpening makes identities vivid, then he departs, leaving a quieter world that still hears his call as the moon reappears. The poem frames change as a cyclical, impersonal force that both refines and moves on.
Read Complete Analyseswho sharpens every dull here comes the only man reminding with his bell to disappear a sun and out of houses pour maids mothers widows wives bringing this visitor their very oldest lives one pays him with a smile another with a tear some cannot pay at all he never seems to care he sharpens is to am he sharpens say to sing you'd almost cut your thumb so right he sharpens wrong and when their lives are keen he throws the world a kiss and slings his wheel upon his back and off he goes but we can hear him still if now our sun is gone reminding with his bell to reappear a moon
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