For One Who Died Singing of Death
He whose might you sang so wellLiving, will not let you rust:Death has set the golden bellPealing in the courts of dust.
About this text
For One Who Died Singing of Death 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 One Who Died Singing of Death, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-one-who-died-singing-of-death.html, id L01458.
Form and metre
For One Who Died Singing of Death is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 7.0 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 wellA · rustB · bellA · dustB
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 whose might you sang so well | 7 | ······· |
| Living, will not let you rust: | 7 | /˘····· |
| Death has set the golden bell | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Pealing in the courts of dust. | 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.