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Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel"

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Text on p. 1172 of the full Ninth Edition

5 10

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why [1] The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare [2] If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus [3] To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune [4] To catechism by a mind too strewn [5] With petty cares to slightly understand [6] What awful brain compels His awful hand. [7] Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: [8] To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

Re-Reading Questions

1. The myths of Tantalus and Sisyphus are important to this poem. In The Odyssey Odysseus reports meeting both in the underworld and describes their punishments for defying the gods:

I saw also the dreadful fate of Tantalus, who stood in a lake that reached his chin; he was dying to quench his thirst, but could never reach the water, for whenever the poor creature stooped to drink, it dried up and vanished, so that there was nothing but dry ground—parched by the spite of heaven. There were tall trees, moreover, that shed their fruit over his head—pears, pomegranates, apples, sweet figs and juicy olives, but whenever the poor creature stretched out his hand to take some, the wind tossed the branches back again to the clouds.

And I saw Sisyphus at his endless task raising his prodigious stone with both his hands. With hands and feet he tried to roll it up to the top of the hill, but always, just before he could roll it over on to the other side, its weight would be too much for him, and the pitiless stone would come thundering down again on to the plain. Then he would begin trying to push it up hill again, and the sweat ran off him and the steam rose after him.

—from Book XI of Homer's Odyssey (Samuel Butler's translation)

Although the punishments seem extraordinarily severe, they do fit the crimes of these kings. Tantalus is said to have served his own son as food for the gods, and Sisyphus tried to cheat death. How do these mythic references add to the poem?

2. Many poetic techniques are important to this poem. It is a traditional sonnet, with three quatrains and one couplet. Scan its rhythm, looking for notable variations of emphasis, repetitions, and rhymes.  The poem also uses alliteration, metonymy, simile, and irony; locate these poetic devices and consider what they add to the poem. 

3. The final line is justifiably famous, yet people debate its meaning and tone. Is this the voice of triumph against unthinkable odds? Or anger at God? Or a justification for his own failure as a poet? Does the speaker regret his fate as a black poet, accept it, or celebrate it, in your opinion?

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