Yet+Do+I+Marvel


 * Yet Do I Marvel**

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!


 * Countée Cullen**

1. What does the speaker not doubt? 2. What does the speaker's references to a mole, "flesh that mirrors Him", Tantalus, and Sisyphus suggest about the nature of God? What tone, then, does the first line seem to be in context of the core of the poem? 3. Who is Tantalus and Sisyphus? 4. What is meant by the phrase that God's "ways" are both "inscrutable" and "immune to catechism"? 5. Why is it significant--both in the context of the poem and historical--that the poet is black?