To O.E.A.
Your voice is the color of a robin’s breast,And there’s a sweet sob in it like rain--still rain in the night.Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest,The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange delightLike the words, wet with music, that well from your trembling throat.I’m afraid of your eyes, they’re so bold,Searching me through, reading my thoughts, shining like gold.But sometimes they are gentle and soft like the dew onthe lips of the eucharisBefore the sun comes warm with his lover’s kiss.You are sea-foam, pure with the star’s loveliness,Not mortal, a flower, a fairy, too fair for the beauty-shorn earth.All wonderful things, all beautiful things, gave of theirwealth to your birth.Oh I love you so much, not recking of passion, that I feel it is wrong!But men will love you, flower, fairy, non-mortal spiritburdened with flesh,Forever, life-long.
Words in this poem
- eucharis n.
- A genus of South American amaryllidaceous plants with large and beautiful white blossoms. [NL., fr. L. eucharis agreeable, Gr. Eucharist.]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To O.E.A. 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, To O.E.A., in Harlem Shadows (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #64989, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mckay-harlem-shadows/to-o-e-a.html, id L01392.
Form and metre
To O.E.A. is 18 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 28% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB-CC----D-DE--E breastA · nightB · nestA · delightB · throat · boldC · goldC · on · eucharis · kiss · loveliness · earthD · their · birthD · wrongE · spirit · flesh · longE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Your voice is the color of a robin’s breast, | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| And there’s a sweet sob in it like rain--still rain in the night. | 14 | ·············· |
| Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest, | 13 | ······/˘····· |
| The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange delight | 13 | ···········˘/ |
| Like the words, wet with music, that well from your trembling throat. | 14 | ·····/˘····/˘· |
| I’m afraid of your eyes, they’re so bold, | 9 | ·˘/······ |
| Searching me through, reading my thoughts, shining like gold. | 12 | /˘··/˘··/˘·· |
| But sometimes they are gentle and soft like the dew on | 13 | ·/···/˘······ |
| the lips of the eucharis | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Before the sun comes warm with his lover’s kiss. | 11 | ········/˘· |
| You are sea-foam, pure with the star’s loveliness, | 11 | ········/˘˘ |
| Not mortal, a flower, a fairy, too fair for the beauty-shorn earth. | 16 | ·/˘·/·/˘····/˘·· |
| All wonderful things, all beautiful things, gave of their | 11 | ·/˘··/˘···· |
| wealth to your birth. | 4 | ···· |
| Oh I love you so much, not recking of passion, that I feel it is wrong! | 18 | ·······/˘·/˘······ |
| But men will love you, flower, fairy, non-mortal spirit | 12 | ·····//˘·/˘/ |
| burdened with flesh, | 4 | /˘·· |
| Forever, life-long. | 5 | ˘/˘·· |
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.