Sacrament
She gave her body for my meat,Her soul to be my wine,And prayed that I be made completeIn sunlight and starshine.
With such abandoned grace she gaveOf all that passion taught her,She never knew her tidal waveCast bread on stagnant water.
Words in this poem
- starshine n.
- The light of the stars.
- tidal a.
- Of or pertaining to tides; caused by tides; having tides; periodically rising and falling, or following and ebbing; as, tidal waters.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sacrament 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, Sacrament, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/sacrament.html, id L01470.
Form and metre
Sacrament is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% 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 ABAB meatA · wineB · completeA · starshineB
- 2 A-A- gaveA · her · waveA · water
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 |
|---|---|---|
| She gave her body for my meat, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Her soul to be my wine, | 6 | ······ |
| And prayed that I be made complete | 8 | ······˘/ |
| In sunlight and starshine. | 6 | ·/··/˘ |
| With such abandoned grace she gave | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Of all that passion taught her, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| She never knew her tidal wave | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Cast bread on stagnant water. | 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.