For a Magician
I whose magic could exploreWays others might not guess or see,Now am barred behind a doorThat has no “Open Sesame.”
Words in this poem
- explore v. t.
- To seek for or after; to strive to attain by search; to look wisely and carefully for. [L. explorare to explore; ex out+plorare to cry out aloud,prob. orig., to cause to flow; perh. akin to E. flow: cf. F. explorer.]
- sesame n.
- Either of two annual herbaceous plants of the genus Sesamum (S. [L. sesamum, sesama, Gr. sésame.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For a Magician 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, For a Magician, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-a-magician.html, id L01446.
Form and metre
For a Magician is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 A-A- exploreA · see · doorA · sesame
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I whose magic could explore | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Ways others might not guess or see, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Now am barred behind a door | 8 | ···˘···· |
| That has no “Open Sesame.” | 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.