For a Virgin
For forty years I shunned the lustInherent in my clay;Death only was so amorousI let him have his way.
Words in this poem
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For a Virgin 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 Virgin, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-a-virgin.html, id L01440.
Form and metre
For a Virgin is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 7.0 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 lust · clayA · amorous · wayA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| For forty years I shunned the lust | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Inherent in my clay; | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Death only was so amorous | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| I let him have his way. | 6 | ······ |
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.