Chansons Innocentes II

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  "section_slug": "nursery-rhymes",
  "title": "Chansons Innocentes II",
  "author": "E. E. Cummings",
  "publisher_label": "Ririro",
  "source_version": "unknown",
  "content_type": "nursery_rhyme",
  "language": "en",
  "summary": "This short, rhythmic vignette conjures a nocturnal, fairy‑tale world of little supernatural creatures—ghosts, witches, goblins, toads and mice—moving in a tip‑toe, onomatopoeic dance; its dense alliteration, repetition and clipped lines create a playful, musical energy that suddenly hints at menace with the wart‑nosed old woman who \"knows the devil\" and the repeated invocation of a \"green dancing devil.\" The poem plays on nursery‑rhyme cadences and folk imagery to blend mischief and whimsy with an undercurrent of folk superstition and childhood unease, collapsing playfulness and threat into a single vivid snapshot.",
  "body": [
    "hist whist little ghostthings tip-toe twinkle-toe",
    "little twitchy witches and tingling goblins hob-a-nob hob-a-nob",
    "little hoppy happy toad in tweeds tweeds little itchy mousies",
    "with scuttling eyes rustle and run and hidehidehide whisk",
    "whisk look out for the old woman with the wart on her nose what she’ll do to yer nobody knows",
    "for she knows the devil ooch the devil ouch the devil ach the great",
    "green dancing devil devil",
    "devil devil wheeEEE"
  ],
  "body_text": "hist whist little ghostthings tip-toe twinkle-toe\n\nlittle twitchy witches and tingling goblins hob-a-nob hob-a-nob\n\nlittle hoppy happy toad in tweeds tweeds little itchy mousies\n\nwith scuttling eyes rustle and run and hidehidehide whisk\n\nwhisk look out for the old woman with the wart on her nose what she’ll do to yer nobody knows\n\nfor she knows the devil ooch the devil ouch the devil ach the great\n\ngreen dancing devil devil\n\ndevil devil wheeEEE",
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    {
      "type": "author",
      "slug": "e-e-cummings",
      "title": "E. E. Cummings",
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    "reading_level": null,
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  "scraped_at": "2026-05-07T12:25:51+00:00"
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