For a Singer
Death clogged this fluteAt its highest note;Song sleeps here muteIn this breathless throat.
Words in this poem
- breathless a.
- Spent with labor or violent action; out of breath.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For a Singer 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 Singer, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-a-singer.html, id L01439.
Form and metre
For a Singer is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 4.5 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 fluteA · noteB · muteA · throatB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Death clogged this flute | 4 | ···· |
| At its highest note; | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Song sleeps here mute | 4 | ···· |
| In this breathless throat. | 5 | ··/˘· |
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.