Requiescam
I am for sleeping and forgettingAll that has gone before;I am for lying still and lettingWho will beat at my door;I would my life’s cold sun were settingTo rise for me no more.
About this text
Requiescam 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, Requiescam, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/requiescam.html, id L01485.
Form and metre
Requiescam is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABABAB forgettingA · beforeB · lettingA · doorB · settingA · moreB
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am for sleeping and forgetting | 9 | ···/˘·˘/˘ |
| All that has gone before; | 6 | ······ |
| I am for lying still and letting | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Who will beat at my door; | 6 | ······ |
| I would my life’s cold sun were setting | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| To rise for me no more. | 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.