For a Pessimist
He wore his coffin for a hat,Calamity his cape,While on his face a death’s-head satAnd waved a bit of crape.
About this text
For a Pessimist 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 Pessimist, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-a-pessimist.html, id L01447.
Form and metre
For a Pessimist is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 7.2 syllables.
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 hatA · capeB · satA · crapeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| He wore his coffin for a hat, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Calamity his cape, | 6 | ˘/˘˘·· |
| While on his face a death’s-head sat | 8 | ········ |
| And waved a bit of crape. | 7 | ··˘···· |
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.