CHRISTMAS TREE little tree little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see I will comfort you because you smell so sweetly I will kiss your cool bark and hug you safe and tight just as your mother would, only don't be afraid look the spangles that sleep all the year in a dark box dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine, the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads, put up your little arms and i'll give them all to you to hold every finger shall have its ring and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy then when you are quite dressed you'll stand in the window for everyone to see and how they'll stare! oh but you'll be very proud and my little sister and i will take hands and looking up at our beautiful tree we'll dance and sing "Noel Noel" -- e. e. cummings American poet Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962), renowned poet, painter, and playwright, was born in Cambridge, MA, the son of a prominent Boston clergyman and teacher. Cummings volunteered as an ambulance driver in WWI and wrote his experiences in a detention camp, "The Enormous Room." (1922). Seeking a spontaneous and fresh presentation in his writing, he generally disregarded grammar and punctuation, even in his own name - coined his own words, ran words and sentences together. After their divorce, his first wife and daughter went to live in Ireland. Cummings always stressed individualism. Some of his verses have been set to music and played in various venues including Ireland. In Kilkenny the former Augustinian Friary played host to "A Wind Has Blown The Rain Away," an evening of e. e. cummings songs with NY composer/pianist Ellen Mandel, accompanied by tenor Toss Almond. The Queen's University, Belfast, has one of Cummings lines on their website - "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."