The Voice at 3 AM

Cutting off the final word, "and", the first two stanzas of this poem make for the best romantic toast ever. If cummings would have simply ended the poem there, I'd love it. Sure, it wouldn't be high art, but it's beautifully written. With the third stanza, however, cummings moves to strengthen his sentiment by referencing the opposition, which is a standard and effective tactic in an argument, but the imagery he introduces by doing so disturbs the aesthetic he created with the first two stanzas. Still, if the poem ended with the first three stanzas, it'd be solid. It'd still make a great toast. The sentiment is a wonderful, although for cummings a typical, one:

"down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)"

The final stanza contributes nothing of adequate value to justify the rather disturbing images of "each world of blood" and "fatal songs," images which lie atop the second stanza's "silent certainly mountains." The poem is a sonnet. It's bookended by two 3 line stanzas, and it has two 4 line stanzas in the middle. Clearly cummings meant to accomplish something with all 14 lines. I'm not claiming that he could better achieve that end by cutting it down to 11. I'm just saying that he nearly accomplished something else all together, and that something is ruined by the final lines of the sonnet.