For a Skeptic
Blood-brother unto Thomas whoseWeak faith doubt kept in trammels,His little credence strained at gnats--But grew robust on camels.
About this text
For a Skeptic 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 Skeptic, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-a-skeptic.html, id L01453.
Form and metre
For a Skeptic is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 2 lines end 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 whose · trammelsA · gnats · camelsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Blood-brother unto Thomas whose | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Weak faith doubt kept in trammels, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| His little credence strained at gnats-- | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| But grew robust on camels. | 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.