Bread and Wine
From death of star to new star’s birth,This ache of limb, this throb of head,This sweaty shop, this smell of earth,For this we pray, “Give daily bread.”
Then tenuous with dreams the night,The feel of soft brown hands in mine,Strength from your lips for one more fight:Bread’s not so dry when dipped in wine.
Words in this poem
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
- throb v. i.
- To beat, or pulsate, with more than usual force or rapidity; to beat in consequence of agitation; to palpitate; -- said of the heart, pulse, etc. [OE. ; of uncertain origin; cf. Russ. trepete a trembling, and E. trepidation.]
- sweaty a.
- Moist with sweat; as, a sweaty skin; a sweaty garment.
- tenuous a.
- Thin; slender; small; minute. [L. tenuis thin. See Thin, and cf. Tenuis.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bread and Wine is in the public domain. This text is taken from Color, Project Gutenberg ebook #70543; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Countee Cullen, Bread and Wine, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/bread-and-wine.html, id L01471.
Form and metre
Bread and Wine is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAB birthA · headB · earthA · breadB
- 2 ABAB nightA · mineB · fightA · wineB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| From death of star to new star’s birth, | 8 | ········ |
| This ache of limb, this throb of head, | 8 | ········ |
| This sweaty shop, this smell of earth, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For this we pray, “Give daily bread.” | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Then tenuous with dreams the night, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| The feel of soft brown hands in mine, | 8 | ········ |
| Strength from your lips for one more fight: | 8 | ········ |
| Bread’s not so dry when dipped in wine. | 8 | ········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.