Cullen, “Yet Do I Marvel”

Countee Cullen

Read By: Todd Hellems

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

  • Countee Cullen
  • 20th Century
  • English
  • Racism
  • Jim Crow
  • God
  • Religion
  • Poetry
  • Favorite Poem Project

Countee Cullen, "Yet I Do Marvel," from Color. Copyright 1925 by Harper and Brothers; renewed 1953 by Ida M. Cullen. Reprinted with permission of Thompson and Thompson.