For Paul Laurence Dunbar
Born of the sorrowful of heart,Mirth was a crown upon his head;Pride kept his twisted lips apartIn jest, to hide a heart that bled.
Words in this poem
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For Paul Laurence Dunbar 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 Paul Laurence Dunbar, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-paul-laurence-dunbar.html, id L01461.
Form and metre
For Paul Laurence Dunbar is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 8.0 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 heartA · headB · apartA · bledB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Born of the sorrowful of heart, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Mirth was a crown upon his head; | 8 | ········ |
| Pride kept his twisted lips apart | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| In jest, to hide a heart that bled. | 8 | ········ |
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.