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Countee Cullen, "Yet Do I Marvel"
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Reading Questions
Text on p. 1172 of the full Ninth Edition and p. 916 of the shorter Ninth Edition.
5
10 |
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I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
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
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing! |
Reading Questions
1. The poem consists of three sentences and, as is customary with poetry, the normal word order is sometimes changed for rhythm and emphasis. Rearrange these sentences as you read so that you understand the underlying syntax. Look up words which you do not fully understand ("quibble," "baited," "caprice," "inscrutable," "catechism," or "awful," for example).
2. What is the poet asking of God? How does he portray his own understanding of God's ways?
3. The poet speaks personally, but does not reveal that he might be black until the final line. How does the withholding of this affect your reading of the poem? How would you have read the poem if you thought that the speaker was not black but was sympathetic to the plight of black poets?
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