Heritage
Now the dead past seems vividly alive,And in this shining moment I can trace,Down through the vista of the vanished years,Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face.
And suddenly some secret spring’s released,And unawares a riddle is revealed,And I can read like large, black-lettered print,What seemed before a thing forever sealed.
I know the magic word, the graceful thought,The song that fills me in my lucid hours,The spirit’s wine that thrills my body through,And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all yours.
I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise,I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true;But I can feel and I can write the word;The best of me is but the least of you.
Words in this poem
- vista n.
- A view; especially, a view through or between intervening objects, as trees; a view or prospect through an avenue, or the like; hence, the trees or other objects that form the avenue. [It., sight, view, fr. vedere, p. p. visto, veduto, to see, fr. L. videre, visum. See View, Vision.]
- elusive a.
- Tending to elude; using arts or deception to escape; adroitly escaping or evading; eluding the grasp; fallacious.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Heritage is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harlem shadows, Project Gutenberg ebook #64989; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Claude McKay, Heritage, in Harlem Shadows (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #64989, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mckay-harlem-shadows/heritage.html, id L01358.
Form and metre
Heritage is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 alive · traceA · years · faceA
- 2 -A-A released · revealedA · print · sealedA
- 4 -A-A praise · trueA · word · youA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Now the dead past seems vividly alive, | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| And in this shining moment I can trace, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Down through the vista of the vanished years, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| And suddenly some secret spring’s released, | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘·˘/ |
| And unawares a riddle is revealed, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| And I can read like large, black-lettered print, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| What seemed before a thing forever sealed. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| I know the magic word, the graceful thought, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The song that fills me in my lucid hours, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| The spirit’s wine that thrills my body through, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all yours. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But I can feel and I can write the word; | 10 | ·········· |
| The best of me is but the least of you. | 10 | ·········· |
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.