Incident
Once riding in old Baltimore,Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,I saw a BaltimoreanKeep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,And he was no whit bigger,And so I smiled, but he poked outHis tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of BaltimoreFrom May until December;Of all the things that happened thereThat’s all that I remember.
Words in this poem
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- whit n.
- The smallest part or particle imaginable; a bit; a jot; an iota; -- generally used in an adverbial phrase in a negative sentence. [OE. wight, wiht, AS. wiht a creature, a thing. See Wight, and cf. Aught, Naught.]
- bigger a.
- , compar. of Big.
- nigger n.
- A negro; -- in vulgar derision or depreciation.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Incident 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, Incident, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/incident.html, id L01426.
Form and metre
Incident is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 baltimore · gleeA · baltimorean · meA
- 2 -A-A small · biggerA · out · niggerA
- 3 -A-A baltimore · decemberA · there · rememberA
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. Read against common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Once riding in old Baltimore, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, | 8 | ··˘··˘·· |
| I saw a Baltimorean | 7 | ······· |
| Keep looking straight at me. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Now I was eight and very small, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And he was no whit bigger, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And so I smiled, but he poked out | 8 | ········ |
| His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.” | 8 | ····˘·/˘ |
| I saw the whole of Baltimore | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| From May until December; | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Of all the things that happened there | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That’s all that I remember. | 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.