The Shroud Of Color Poem Rhyme Scheme

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quot Lord being dark quot I said quot I cannot bear	A
The further touch of earth the scented air	A
Lord being dark forewilled to that despair	A
My color shrouds me in I am as dirt	B
Beneath my brother's heel there is a hurt	B
In all the simple joys which to a child	C
Are sweet they are contaminate defiled	C
By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails	D
To see too great a cost this birth entails	D
I strangle in this yoke drawn tighter than	E
The worth of bearing it just to be man	E
I am not brave enough to pay the price	F
In full I lack the strength to sacrifice	F
I who have burned my hands upon a star	G
And climbed high hills at dawn to view the far	G
Illimitable wonderments of earth	H
For whom all cups have dripped the wine of mirth	H
For whom the sea has strained her honeyed throat	C
Till all the world was sea and I a boat	C
Unmoored on what strange quest I willed to float	C
Who wore a many colored coat of dreams	I
Thy gift O Lord I whom sun dabbled streams	I
Have washed whose bare brown thighs have held the sun	J
Incarcerate until his course was run	J
I who considered man a high perfected	C
Glass where loveliness could lie reflected	C
Now that I sway athwart Truth's deep abyss	K
Denuding man for what he was and is	L
Shall breath and being so inveigle me	M
That I can damn my dreams to hell and be	M
Content each new born day anew to see	M
The steaming crimson vintage of my youth	N
Incarnadine the altar slab of Truth	N
	-
Or hast Thou Lord somewhere I cannot see	M
A lamb imprisoned in a bush for me	M
Not so Then let me render one by one	J
Thy gifts while still they shine some little sun	J
Yet gilds these thighs my coat albeit worn	O
Still hold its colors fast albeit torn	O
My heart will laugh a little yet if I	P
May win of Thee this grace Lord on this high	P
And sacrificial hill 'twixt earth and sky	P
To dream still pure all that I loved and die	P
There is no other way to keep secure	Q
My wild chimeras grave locked against the lure	Q
Of Truth the small hard teeth of worms yet less	R
Envenomed than the mouth of Truth will bless	R
Them into dust and happy nothingness	S
Lord Thou art God and I Lord what am I	P
But dust With dust my place Lord let me die quot	P
	-
Across earth's warm palpitating crust	P
I flung my body in embrace I thrust	P
My mouth into the grass and sucked the dew	P
Then gave it back in tears my anguish drew	P
So hard I pressed against the ground I felt	P
The smallest sandgrain like a knife and smelt	P
The next year's flowering all this to speed	P
My body's dissolution fain to feed	P
The worms And so I groaned and spent my strength	T
Until all passion spent I lay full length	T
And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing	U
	-
So lay till lifted on a great black wing	U
That had no mate nor flesh apparent trunk	V
To hamper it with me all time had sunk	V
Into oblivion when I awoke	W
The wing hung poised above two cliffs that broke	W
The bowels of the earth in twain and cleft	P
The seas apart Below above to left	P
To right I saw what no man saw before	X
Earth hell and heaven sinew vein and core	X
All things that swim or walk or creep or fly	P
All things that live and hunger faint and die	P
Were made majestic then and magnified	P
By sight so clearly purged and deified	P
The smallest bug that crawls was taller than	E
A tree the mustard seed loomed like a man	E
The earth that writhes eternally with pain	Y
Of birth and woe of taking back her slain	Y
Laid bare her teeming bosom to my sight	P
And all was struggle gasping breath and fight	P
A blind worm here dug tunnels to the light	P
And there a seed racked with heroic pain	Y
Thrust eager tentacles to sun and rain	Y
It climbed it died the old love conquered me	M
To weep the blossom it would never be	M
But here a bud won light it burst and flowered	P
Into a rose whose beauty challenged quot Coward quot	P
There was no thing alive save only I	P
That held life in contempt and longed to die	P
And still I writhed and moaned quot The curse the curse	Z
Than animated death can death be worse quot	P
	-
quot Dark child of sorrow mine no less what art Of mine can make thee see	M
and play thy part The key to all strange things is in thy heart quot	P
	-
What voice was this that coursed like liquid fire	A2
Along my flesh and turned my hair to wire	A2
	-
I raised my burning eyes beheld a field	P
All multitudinous with carnal yield	P
A grim ensanguined mead whereon I saw	B2
Evolve the ancient fundamental law	B2
Of tooth and talon fist and nail and claw	B2
There with the force of living hostile hills	C2
Whose clash the hemmed in vale with clamor fills	C2
With greater din contended fierce majestic wills	C2
Of beast with beast of man with man in strife	D2
For love of what my heart despised for life	D2
That unto me at dawn was now a prayer	A
For night at night a bloody heart wrung tear	A
For day again for this these groans	E2
From tangled flesh and interlocked bones	E2
And no thing died that did not give	F2
A testimony that it longed to live	G2
Man strange composite blend of brute and god	P
Pushed on nor backward glanced where last he trod	P
He seemed to mount a misty ladder flung	H2
Pendant from a cloud yet never gained a rung	H2
But at his feet another tugged and clung	H2
My heart was still a pool of bitterness	S
Would yield nought else nought else confess	R
I spoke although no form was there	A
To see I knew an ear was there to hear	I2
quot Well let them fight they can whose flesh is fair quot	P
	-
Crisp lightning flashed a wave of thunder shook	J2
My wing a pause and then a speaking quot Look quot	P
	-
I scarce dared trust my ears or eyes for awe	K2
Of what they heard and dread of what they saw	B2
For privileged beyond degree this flesh	L2
Beheld God and His heaven in the mesh	L2
Of Lucifer's revolt saw Lucifer	A2
Glow like the sun and like a dulcimer	A2
I heard his sin sweet voice break on the yell	M2
Of God's great warriors Gabriel	N2
Saint Clair and Michael Israfel and Raphael	M2
And strange it was to see God with His back	O2
Against a wall to see Christ hew and hack	O2
Till Lucifer pressed by the mighty pair	A
And losing inch by inch clawed at the air	A
With fevered wings then lost beyond repair	A
He tricked a mass of stars into his hair	A
He filled his hands with stars crying as he fell	M2
quot A star's a star although it burns in hell quot	P
So God was left to His divinity	P
Omnipotent at that most costly fee	P
	-
There was a lesson here but still the clod	P
In me was sycophant unto the rod	P
And cried quot Why mock me thus Am I a god quot	P
	-
quot One trial more this failing then I give You leave to die no	P2
further need to live quot	P
	-
Now suddenly a strange wild music smote	P
A chord long impotent in me a note	P
Of jungles primitive and subtle throbbed	P
Against my echoing breast and tom toms sobbed	P
In every pulse beat of my frame The din	Q2
A hollow log bound with a python's skin	Q2
Can make wrought every nerve to ecstasy	P
And I was wind and sky again and sea	P
And all sweet things that flourish being free	P
	-
Till all at once the music changed its key	P
	-
And now it was of bitterness and death	R2
The cry the lash extorts the broken breath	R2
Of liberty enchained and yet there ran	E
Through all a harmony of faith in man	E
A knowledge all would end as it began	E
All sights and sounds and aspects of my race	S2
Accompanied this melody kept pace	S2
With it with music all their hopes and hates	T2
Were charged not to be downed by all the fates	T2
And somehow it was borne upon my brain	Y
How being dark and living through the pain	Y
Of it is courage more than angels have I knew	P
What storms and tumults lashed the tree that grew	P
This body that I was this cringing I	P
That feared to contemplate a changing sky	P
This that I grovelled whining quot Let me die quot	P
While others struggled in Life's abattoir	P
The cries of all dark people near or far	P
Were billowed over me a mighty surge	U2
Of suffering in which my puny grief must merge	U2
And lose itself I had no further claim to urge	U2
For death in shame I raised my dust grimed head	P
And though my lips moved not God knew I said	P
quot Lord not for what I saw in flesh or bone	V2
Of fairer men not raised on faith alone	V2
Lord I will	W2

Countee Cullen

The Shroud Of Color Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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