Analysis of The Creation

James Weldon Johnson 1871 (Jacksonville) – 1938 (Wiscasset)



And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That's good!

Then God himself stepped down--
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was under his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.

Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas--
He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed--
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled--
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.

Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.

Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That's good!

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I'm lonely still.

Then God sat down--
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;

Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen.Amen.


Scheme abcd cxax xxxeF gghxhxxixjdF klxbxmxx xhdnxxkk xxoxpcxxe llxlaxnxqF ppxhxidqx kxkgxx erekcojlmcxrx xxh
Poetic Form
Metre 011111 0110101 110 11101 011011111 101010 1010101 100101 111 0011 001011111 0011101010 01111 11110101011 0110101011 011101 011110100010 00111111001 1101100101 01101010 10110101 1101 010001 1101 01111 110111 00111111 0011111 010100111 00111011 0110111 11100101 010101 1110101 10111010 11110101101 01110101 1101100101 111100101 0010010111 0101011 101110 001011010 01110110101 0011111 011010010101 001011101 01101 00101 010101110 1111101111 100101001 0111111 010111111 1001 0101 1010001 1010001 0101111 01111 11101 01101 111111 11111 011111 01111101 11111 111101 0111101 1111 1011011111 101110111 111011 1101 11111101 11011010 1101 01011010 1111 01011010 1101011001 1101101110101 110010010111 111 1011010010 11001 10100111 1111011110 1011110111 01010101 1
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,884
Words 583
Sentences 22
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 5, 12, 8, 8, 9, 10, 9, 6, 13, 3
Lines Amount 91
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 191
Words per stanza (avg) 48
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

2:57 min read
1,652

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is best remembered for his leadership within the NAACP as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and anthologies. He was also the first African-American professor at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University. more…

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