Countee Cullen’s “From the Dark Tower”
Countee Cullen’s “From the Dark Tower” Lyrics
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made eternally to weep.
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,
White stars, is no less lovely being dark;
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall.
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
About
Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
Countee Cullen, a Harlem Renaissance poet, was influenced by the artistic movement that sprang out of the black community in the 1920s in Harlem. However, Cullen’s poetry was also shaped by his formal education at predominately white institutions at the time, like New York University and Harvard, where he studied literature and creative writing. The dual influences of black culture and white education are present in Cullen’s work. For example, the poem is 14 lines long, situating it in the formal tradition of the sonnet. However, the content of this poem is aligned with the personal and political goals of Harlem Renaissance. Consider how this tension plays out as you read the poem.
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