Harlem Night Club
Sleek black boys in a cabaret.Jazz-band, jazz-band,—Play, plAY, PLAY!Tomorrow....who knows?Dance today!
White girls’ eyesCall gay black boys.Black boys’ lipsGrin jungle joys.
Dark brown girlsIn blond men’s arms.Jazz-band, jazz-band,—Sing Eve’s charms!
White ones, brown ones,What do you knowAbout tomorrowWhere all paths go?
Jazz-boys, jazz-boys,—Play, plAY, PLAY!Tomorrow....is darkness.Joy today!
Words in this poem
- cabaret n.
- A tavern; a house where liquors are retailed. [Obs. as an English word.] [F.]
- tomorrow adv.
- On the day after the present day; on the next day; on the morrow. [Prep. to + morrow.]
- grin n.
- A snare; a gin. [AS. grin.]
- jungle n.
- A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja desert.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Harlem Night Club is in the public domain. This text is taken from The weary blues, Project Gutenberg ebook #74745; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Langston Hughes, Harlem Night Club, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/harlem-night-club.html, id L01496.
Form and metre
Harlem Night Club is 21 lines in 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 24% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
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-A cabaretA · band · playA · knows · todayA
- 2 -A-A eyes · boysA · lips · joysA
- 3 -A-A girls · armsA · band · charmsA
- 4 -AAA ones · knowA · tomorrowA · goA
- 5 -A-A boys · playA · darkness · todayA
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sleek black boys in a cabaret. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Jazz-band, jazz-band,— | 4 | ···· |
| Play, plAY, PLAY! | 3 | ··· |
| Tomorrow....who knows? | 5 | ˘/··· |
| Dance today! | 3 | ·˘/ |
| White girls’ eyes | 3 | ··· |
| Call gay black boys. | 4 | ···· |
| Black boys’ lips | 3 | ··· |
| Grin jungle joys. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Dark brown girls | 3 | ··· |
| In blond men’s arms. | 4 | ···· |
| Jazz-band, jazz-band,— | 4 | ···· |
| Sing Eve’s charms! | 3 | ··· |
| White ones, brown ones, | 4 | ···· |
| What do you know | 4 | ···· |
| About tomorrow | 5 | ··˘/· |
| Where all paths go? | 4 | ···· |
| Jazz-boys, jazz-boys,— | 4 | ···· |
| Play, plAY, PLAY! | 3 | ··· |
| Tomorrow....is darkness. | 6 | ˘/··/˘ |
| Joy today! | 3 | ·˘/ |
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.