Yet do I marvel
Countee Cullen’s poem “Yet Do I Marvel” was published in 1925 in his first collection of poetry, titled “Color”.
Born Countee LeRoy Porter, Cullen was born on 30 May 1903. His place of birth is undetermined. He died on 9 January 1946 in New York City, US, at the age of 42.
A poet, novelist, children’s writer, and playwright, Cullen was well known during the Harlem Renaissance. By the time he was pursuing his master’s degree in English at Harvard University, he had already published Color, his first collection of poems, which celebrated black beauty and deplored the effects of racism.
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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!