"pity this busy monster, manunkind" is a poem by American poet E. E. Cummings, first published in his 1944 book 1 × 1. It is among his best-known poems. The poem laments the triumph of progress—defined in terms of science and technology—over nature, describing progress as a "comfortable disease", and declaring "A world of made / is not a world of born". To Cummings, the "busy monster" is a society bent on subverting nature and individual humanity, the loss of which is to be mourned. In closing, the poem's speaker suggests – with an ironic optimism – an escape to "a hell of a good universe next door".