The Full Text of “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
The Full Text of “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
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“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Introduction
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"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" was written by the American poet E. E. Cummings, first published in his 1931 collection ViVa. Cummings is best known for his love poems, and this is considered by many critics to be one of his most exemplary. The poem explores the intense and mysterious power that the speaker's beloved holds over him. Even this person's slightest gesture can emotionally unravel the speaker and then close him back up again, yet the speaker can't quite articulate why this is so. The speaker still gladly and willingly accepts this feeling of vulnerability, which is unlike anything he's ever known. Like many of Cummings's poems, "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" uses unconventional punctuation, capitalization, and syntax.
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“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Summary
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Looking into your quiet eyes takes me somewhere I've never been before, and is a joyful experience like nothing I've ever experienced. There's something about even your subtlest gesture that has the power to completely envelop me, though I can't put my finger on what exactly it is because I'm too wrapped up in it.
The smallest glance from you is all it takes to open me up. Even though I've closed myself tightly, like fingers clenched into a fist, you always open me petal by petal, just like spring delicately and mysteriously opens her first rose.
Or, if you want to me to close myself back up, I'll do so quickly and beautifully, like a rose that senses that winter's coming.
There's nothing in the entire world that can match the power of your extreme fragility. Your delicate nature, with all its vivid color and complexity, makes me love you, and contains death and eternity within each breath.
(I don't know what it is about you that has such a hold over me; it's just that looking into your eyes is more powerful than any love I've felt before). Nothing, not even raindrops, are as small and delicate as your hands.
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“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Themes
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The Mystery and Intensity of Love
"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" is a poem about love—specifically, the kind of love that has the power to utterly unravel (and re-ravel) a person, even if they can't quite figure out why. The speaker is experiencing a love unlike anything he's ever felt before, described as a place to which he's “never travelled.” The speaker doesn’t quite understand the hold that his beloved has on him, yet surrenders to it willingly, simply reveling in the intensity of his feelings. In this way, the poem suggests that love is something that goes beyond rational understanding—that it's a force more powerful than reason itself.
The speaker is entirely at the mercy of his beloved, wrapped up in even the “most frail gesture” of this other person. In other words, even the littlest thing this person does—a flick of the wrist, a nod of the head—has the power to set the speaker's heart racing. If this person wants the speaker to "open," he's on it. Now the beloved wants the speaker to "close"? He'll "shut" up his entire "life"—and he'll do so without complaint, quickly and "beautifully" like a rose (not incidentally, a classic symbol of love) closing itself off from winter snow.
The speaker can't explain the power his beloved has over him, however, and feels unable to “touch” whatever it is that's got him so heart-eyed because such things are “too near.” It seems the speaker can't totally grasp the spell he's under while he's under it. There's no way for him to look at his love objectively, the poem implies, because he's too caught up in the experience of love itself, which is apparently much more powerful than the desire to understand it.
There is tenderness and beauty in the speaker's comparison of his beloved's influence over him to that of spring as it "skilfully,mysteriously" touches "her first rose," implying that part of what makes this love so extraordinary is the speaker's inability to put a finger on what it is that he finds so compelling about his beloved. When he says of this person, “your eyes have their silence,” this seems to illustrate some mystery at the heart of their relationship—that there are things about this person that remain totally unknown to the speaker. And yet, that seems to be part of what’s so exciting; even those silent eyes say something "deeper than all roses." The part of this person that the speaker doesn’t understand seems to be more intoxicating to him than any other love he's ever known.
The speaker thus readily and joyfully surrenders to his beloved's power, forgoing understanding in favor of the mystery and intensity of his feelings. He isn’t trying to protect himself or control what he doesn't understand; rather, he's allowing himself to feel this love acutely, trusting that its mystery and intensity is what makes it so special.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-20
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Love and Vulnerability
The speaker of "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" repeatedly calls attention to the fact his beloved is very delicate. The speaker is attracted to this "intense fragility," something that, rather paradoxically, holds immense power over the speaker. In fact, it is this fragility that has the ability to quickly unravel all the speaker's defenses and coax him out of his shell. That is, his beloved's delicate nature seems to make the speaker himself more loving and emotionally vulnerable. In this way, the poem illustrates the transformative power of gentle, delicate love, which it implies can lead people to be their most tender, unguarded selves.
Despite the power the speaker's beloved holds over him, this person isn't physically imposing by a long shot; the speaker mentions this person's "small hands," their gentle touch and "frail gesture[s]," and, of course, their "intense fragility." All of these things make the beloved even more compelling in the speaker's mind, and, in this way, the beloved's fragility becomes a source of power. In fact, this fragility is more powerful than anything else in the world, the speaker declares, going on to personify it as a sort of living entity that contains death and eternity itself in each breath.
Such power isn't terrifying or dangerous; on the contrary, the beloved's fragility elicits the speaker's own vulnerability. The speaker claims that this person’s “slightest look easily will unclose” him—that is, open him up—despite the fact that the speaker has seemingly closed himself tightly like "fingers" balled into a fist. The beloved doesn't pry these metaphorical fingers apart with force, but rather tenderly opens the speaker in the same way that the spring opens the petals of a rose. In other words, the speaker drops his guard as willingly and as naturally as a flower blooms in the spring. Opening up to his beloved feels natural, gentle, and totally worth it.
Despite his joy in “opening,” however, the speaker doesn’t feel afraid of being “closed” by his beloved either. It seems that, in opening up to this person, the speaker has embraced the power that love has over him. There is a malleability to the speaker, who recognizes that loving this person means being open to being hurt by or losing them. Again, then, the poem links the experience of deep, consuming love to vulnerability, implying that the former is impossible without the latter.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-20
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
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Lines 1-2
somewhere i have ...
... have their silence:The poem begins with a metaphor: the speaker is comparing the experience of being in love to a journey, and more specifically to a journey to a place the speaker hasn't been before. This metaphor invites a sense of adventure and thrill into the poem: traveling somewhere new may be challenging and frightening in many ways, but it's also exciting.
It seems the same goes for love, as the speaker is "gladly beyond any experience" he's ever had. In other words, the speaker is fully outside his comfort zone, and yet totally enjoying the thrill of the unknown. (Note that, while we're using masculine pronouns throughout this guide for the sake of clarity, the speaker is ungendered in the poem itself.)
The lack of space between "travelled,gladly" isn't a mistake, but a classic case of Cummings playing with traditional syntax and grammar in his work. Here, the spacing might suggest that the speaker's journey is tied up with his happiness. The enjambment at the end of line 1, meanwhile, evokes this sense of traveling "beyond" the confines of the known, the line itself thrusting out into the blank space of the page.
Next, the speaker tells his beloved that their "eyes have their silence." Eyes are, of course, always silent; the speaker is being metaphorical again, essentially saying that there are things about his beloved that he doesn't understand. This person is somehow mysterious; the speaker can't read them, so to speak, but still feels transported to some exciting new land upon looking into their eyes.
The consonance and assonance in "experience" and "silence" create a subtle echo, as if to imply that the beloved's silence, or mystery, is the reason that the speaker finds himself "beyond any experience." There is something about this relationship that the speaker has never encountered before.
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Lines 3-4
in your most ...
... are too near -
Lines 5-6
your slightest look ...
... myself as fingers, -
Lines 7-8
you open always ...
... skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose -
Lines 9-10
or if your ...
... shut very beautifully,suddenly, -
Lines 11-12
as when the ...
... carefully everywhere descending; -
Lines 13-14
nothing which we ...
... your intense fragility: -
Lines 14-16
whose texture ...
... with each breathing -
Lines 17-19
(i do not ...
... than all roses) -
Line 20
nobody,not even the ... such small hands
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“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Symbols
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Eyes
In this poem, eyes symbolize the parts of someone that can't be rationally understood. The speaker notes early on that his beloved's "eyes have their silence," an image that suggests that there are some things that exist in or between people that can't necessarily be articulated.
The speaker is drawn to this mystery, so much so that his beloved's "slightest look easily will unclose" him. In other words, the power of this mystery is so strong that even the slightest glimpse of it softens the speaker's defenses, compelling him to become more tender and vulnerable.
Finally, the speaker claims that "the voice of [the beloved's] eyes is deeper than all roses." As the "silence" of the beloved's eyes has already been established, it seems the speaker is trying to say that even though he doesn't understand the power this person has over him, he feels it is somehow more meaningful than any love he's ever experienced or imagined.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 2: “your eyes have their silence:”
- Line 5: “your slightest look easily will unclose me”
- Line 19: “the voice of your eyes”
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Roses
Roses traditionally symbolize romantic love, and the poem plays up these connotations. The speaker describes his beloved "opening" him "petal by petal"in the same way that a "Spring" opens "her first rose." This simile compares the speaker to a rose, with his lover compared to "Spring" (personified as a female being here, no less). Through this simile, the speaker is essentially identifying with love itself. In doing so, he relates the intensity of his feelings and the immense hold that his beloved has on him.
This also seems to speak to the utter vulnerability of the speaker; the first rose to open in spring is also the first to die if temperatures drop back below freezing! There is a sense of the speaker being exposed, then, but also being unafraid of this exposure. Should the speaker be hurt by this vulnerability, he imagines himself as "shut[ting] very beautifully" like a rose closing itself up in winter. The speaker is so enthralled by this person and this love that even the possibility of pain seems somehow beautiful.
In the final stanza, however, the speaker tells his beloved that "the voice of [their] eyes is deeper than all roses." Here, the stereotypical symbolism of the rose—the stock image of romantic love—comes into contrast with the speaker's experience of love, which he feels is much more real and meaningful.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 7: “you open always petal by petal myself ”
- Line 8: “her first rose”
- Line 11: “as when the heart of this flower imagines”
- Line 19: “the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)”
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Closing and Opening
The poem utilizes variations of the words "closed" and "opened" throughout, with "closed" symbolizing being emotionally guarded and "open" symbolizing vulnerability.
The speaker is "unclosed" by his beloved, meaning that he was previously closed—basically, that he had lots of emotional walls up. He specifically says he was closed "like fingers," an image that calls to mind a fist and the speaker trying to protect himself from being hurt. The imager of the speaker being opened "petal by petal as the Spring opens [...] her first rose" speaks to the warmth of his beloved, who doesn't forcefully break down the speaker's defenses but rather gently compels the speaker to let go of them of his own accord.
The speaker goes on to admit that he doesn't "know what it is about [the beloved] that closes / and opens." This suggests that though he is allowing himself to be vulnerable with his beloved, he doesn't yet fully understand this person—how, exactly, this person affects him, or what causes the beloved themselves to become vulnerable or guarded. There is thus a sense that this love is still unfamiliar, that the other person is still mysterious.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 5-6: “your slightest look easily will unclose me / though i have closed myself as fingers,”
- Lines 7-8: “you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens / (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose”
- Lines 9-10: “or if your wish be to close me,i and / my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,”
- Lines 17-18: “(i do not know what it is about you that closes / and opens”
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“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Consonance
Consonance is used throughout the poem to add emphasis to certain moments and simply intensify the poem's language. Take the poem's first line, for example, where /v/, /l/, and /d/ sounds lend a deep, soothing resonance as the speaker describes the mystery and excitement of his love:
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
The poem in general features many delicate and smooth sounds, which reflects the fact that this is a poem about deep, all-encompassing love.
The poem also turns to sibilance (in the form of both /s/ and /z/ sounds) at times to create a soft hush, quieting the speaker's language in a way that reflects both his reverence for his beloved and this person's fragility. Note the flurry of /s/ and /z/ sounds in stanza 2, for instance, which pair with /l/ sounds to create an intensely soothing passage (despite the fact that the speaker is talking about his beloved's immense hold over him):
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first roseThe poem is filled with moments like this (in part due to the frequent repetition of some form of the word "close"), and thus feels gentle and lovely throughout.
A particularly striking moment of consonance—more specifically alliteration—comes in lines 14-15:
[...] whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,The hard /c/ sounds here add a sense of "texture" to the description of the beloved's fragility.
Where consonance appears in the poem:- Line 1: “have,” “never,” “travelled,” “gladly,” “beyond”
- Line 2: “experience,” “silence”
- Line 3: “frail,” “things,” “enclose”
- Line 4: “cannot,” “near”
- Line 5: “slightest,” “look,” “easily,” “will,” “unclose”
- Line 6: “closed,” “myself,” “fingers”
- Line 7: “open,” “always,” “petal,” “petal,” “myself,” “Spring,” “opens”
- Line 8: “skilfully,” “mysteriously,” “first,” “rose”
- Line 9: “close”
- Line 10: “life,” “will,” “very,” “beautifully,” “suddenly”
- Line 11: “when,” “heart,” “flower,” “imagines”
- Line 12: “snow,” “carefully,” “everywhere,” “descending”
- Line 13: “nothing,” “perceive,” “world,” “equals”
- Line 14: “power,” “intense,” “fragility,” “texture”
- Line 15: “compels,” “colour,” “countries”
- Line 16: “rendering,” “forever,” “breathing”
- Line 17: “not,” “know,” “closes”
- Line 18: “opens,” “only,” “understands”
- Line 19: “than,” “all,” “roses”
- Line 20: “nobody,” “not,” “even,” “rain,” “such,” “small,” “hands”
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Assonance
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Enjambment
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Personification
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Metaphor
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Simile
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Imagery
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Juxtaposition
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Paradox
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Repetition
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"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Frail
- Enclose
- Unclose
- Fragility
- Compels
- Rendering
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(Location in poem: Line 3: “in your most frail gesture”)
Physically weak; delicate.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
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Form
"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond" is written in free verse, meaning that it doesn't adhere to any set patterns of meter or rhyme. It doesn't follow a specific poetic form, apart from the fact that its 20 lines are broken up into five quatrains (four-line stanzas).
In a way, this steady stanza form might reflect the speaker being "enclose[d]" by his beloved. He's not entirely free as he finds himself spellbound by this other person, compelled by forces he doesn't quite understand.
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Meter
The poem doesn't utilize meter consistently, instead being mostly written in free verse. This keeps the poem feeling flowing and loose—open just like the speaker himself under the influence of love. Strict meter (or rhyme scheme) would feel too rigid and constructed for a poem like this.
That said, many of the poem's lines feature are about the same length and might be thought of rough hexameter (meaning they have six feet and around 12 syllables apiece). The first stanza is composed entirely in hexameter, for example, which lends itself to a slightly measured or paced feel. Because the feet don't follow a set beat, though, the meter adds structure without imposing a specific rhythm. (If the feet were consistently iambic, for example, there would be a noticeable rhythm of: da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum.)
The second stanza is the most variable in terms of line lengths; line 6 ("though i have closed myself as fingers") is nine syllables long, the shortest in the poem, while line 7 ("you open always [...] as Spring opens") is a whopping 16 syllables—the longest in the poem. This subtly evokes the contrast between a "closed" speaker and an "open" one—under the influence of love, the speaker goes from being terse to being expansive.
Stanzas 3 and 4 are also variable in their line lengths, though starting with line 16, the poem returns to a more consistent hexameter. Notice the regularity of the stresses until the end, which creates a sort of galloping, falling rhythm—perhaps evoking the "breathing" being described:
rendering | death and for- | ever with | each breathing
The speaker thus uses meter to add emphasis to certain moments in the poem, but by and large it feels loose and free.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem as a whole follows no set rhyme scheme. That said, the final stanza does have a rhyme scheme, making it feel even more conclusive, almost like a summation of everything that came before it. The rhyme scheme for the final stanza is ABAB ("closes"/"roses" and "understands"/"hands").
Throughout the rest of the poem, rhyme is noticeably absent, with only a couple of exceptions; the presence of polyptoton results in internal rhyme in lines 3 ("enclose") and 5 ("unclose"), as well as within lines 6 ("closed") and 9 ("close—all of which then rhyme with "rose" at the end of line 8. In addition to the polyptoton/internal rhyme in lines 3 and 5, there is the identical rhyme created by the repetition of the pronoun "me" at the ends of those lines. There is also a subtle internal rhyme between "all" and "small" in the final two lines of the poem.
These moments add blips of musicality without ever letting the poem feel rigid or predictable.
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“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is someone deeply in love. The object of his affection is a person he perceives to be very fragile—a lover, perhaps, though the speaker could also be discussing his deep love for his child or even something more metaphorical, like a representative of God or a poetic muse.
The important thing is that this speaker has never experienced such a love before; it compels him to be more open and vulnerable, to be present to the intensity and mystery of love's effects. This person is utterly enthralled and "gladly" attuned to his beloved's most insignificant gesture—which has an extraordinary influence over the speaker, an influence that he can't rationally make sense of, but succumbs to willingly nonetheless.
Note that we've used male pronouns throughout this guide for the simple sake of clarity when it comes to discussing the poem's different subjects (the speaker vs. the object of his affection); the speaker in the poem itself is given no gender and can be read however readers see fit.
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“somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Setting
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This poem is not set in the physical world so much as in the speaker's mind; there is no sense of where the speaker is located in actual time and space. The speaker references traveling and countries and spring and snow, all of which are used metaphorically rather than literally. The closest the reader gets to seeing the world the speaker is located in is the speaker's descriptions of his beloved: their eyes that "have their silence," their "most frail gesture," their "slightest look," and their "small hands." In this way, it would be most accurate to say that the setting of this poem is the beloved, or the speaker's perceptions of the beloved.
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Literary and Historical Context of “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
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Literary Context
This poem was first published in Cummings's 1931 collection ViVa. By this time, Cummings had already published several collections and was quite well known for his idiosyncratic style, which bucked conventional rules of grammar and punctuation (even while being applied to subjects that were considered rather outmoded or sentimental at the time). He was particularly known for his love poems, and despite his avant-garde sensibilities, his work became popular with a large readership, including people who didn't necessarily read much poetry.
In fact, while Cummings is considered to be one of the most important poets associated with the Modernist movement, his own work is much better understood as being in the tradition of the Romantics: his sentimental relationship to love, his awe and wonder of the natural world, and his elevation of the individual imagination all echo the core concerns of Romanticism.
His work was actually criticized by fellow Modernists as lacking seriousness or real "meaning" beneath the stylistic innovations that linked his work to the movement. While Modernism was defined by difficulty and complexity and seriousness, Cummings's work was playful, evoking a childlike sense of wonder and delight, highly novel on the surface yet seeming to lack depth.
Cummings himself, however, balked against the notion that art needed to contain deeper meaning; he believed that the point of art was to experience it rather than to understand it. During the staging of one of his plays, he famously told the audience to "relax, stop wondering what it's all 'about'—like many strange and familiar things, life included, this play isn't 'about,' it simply is." This is perhaps key to fully appreciating his work--the ability to relax and trust that nothing is expected of the reader outside their experience of the poem.
Historical Context
Edward Estlin Cummings (i.e., "E. E. Cummings") was born in 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served in France during WWI; after the war, he returned to Paris, living there from 1921-1923. Upon returning to New York in 1923, his first collection of poetry—Tulips and Chimneys—was published. A second collection, XLI Poems, was published soon after, and he quickly became one of the most recognized poets of his time.
Like all Modernists, Cummings was affected by the massive societal shifts that happened in response to the rise in industrialization and advanced knowledge in science and technology, as well as the shift away from traditional values prompted by WWI. The world was suddenly gripped by innovations in every sphere, from warfare to the home, and people's lives were changing rapidly. Art reflected this landscape of rapid change and innovation; artists sought to break with longstanding traditions, and experimentation and novelty were paramount.
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More “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” Resources
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External Resources
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Modernism — An introduction to the modernist poetic movement.
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Modernism, Part II — Another brief introduction to modernism and modernist poets from Poets.org, for comparison's sake.
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The Poetry of Love — Oft considered one of the great love poets, Cummings's work naturally appears in this collection of renowned love poems.
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A Reading of the Poem — Listen to a recording of the poem read by the author himself.
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Biography of E. E. Cummings — Learn more about the poet's life and work courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by E. E. Cummings
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