Proem
I am a Negro:Black as the night is black,Black like the depths of my Africa.
I’ve been a slave:Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.I brushed the boots of Washington.
I’ve been a worker:Under my hand the pyramids arose.I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.
I’ve been a singer:All the way from Africa to GeorgiaI carried my sorrow songs.I made ragtime.
I’ve been a victim:The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.They lynch me now in Texas.
I am a Negro:Black as the night is black,Black like the depths of my Africa.
Words in this poem
- ragtime n.
- Time characterized by syncopation, as in many negro melodies.
- congo n.
- Black tea, of higher grade (finer leaf and less dusty) than the present bohea. See Tea. [Chin. kung-foo labor.]
- lynch v. t.
- To inflict punishment upon, especially death, without the forms of law, as when a mob captures and hangs a suspected person. See Lynch law. [See Note under Lynch law.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Proem 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, Proem, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/proem.html, id L01487.
Form and metre
Proem is 19 lines in 6 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in trochaic trimeter. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 12 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 5% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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.
- 2 -AA slave · cleanA · washingtonA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am a Negro: | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Black as the night is black, | 6 | ······ |
| Black like the depths of my Africa. | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| I’ve been a slave: | 4 | ···· |
| Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean. | 10 | /˘········ |
| I brushed the boots of Washington. | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| I’ve been a worker: | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Under my hand the pyramids arose. | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| I made mortar for the Woolworth Building. | 10 | ··/˘··/·/˘ |
| I’ve been a singer: | 5 | ···/˘ |
| All the way from Africa to Georgia | 10 | ····/˘˘·/˘ |
| I carried my sorrow songs. | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| I made ragtime. | 4 | ··/· |
| I’ve been a victim: | 5 | ···/˘ |
| The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| They lynch me now in Texas. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| I am a Negro: | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Black as the night is black, | 6 | ······ |
| Black like the depths of my Africa. | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
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.