Analysis of Song of the Son

Jean Toomer 1894 (Washington, D.C.) – 1967 (Doylestown)



Pour O pour that parting soul in song
O pour it in the sawdust glow of night
Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,
And let the valley carry it along.
And let the valley carry it along.
O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,
So scant of grass, so proligate of pines,
Now hust before an epoch's sun declines
Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee,
Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.
In time, for though the sun is setting on
A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;
Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet
To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone,
Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.
O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums,
Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air,
Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare
One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes
an everlasting song, a singing tree,
Caroling softly souls of slavery,
What they were, and what they are to me,
Caroling softly souls of slavery.


Scheme abbAAcddcceffgghiihcCcC
Poetic Form
Metre 111110101 111001111 0101011101 0101010101 0101010101 1101110111 11111111 110111101 1101110111 1111010111 0111011101 0111111111 1111111111 1111011011 1011110111 1101110101 101000111 1001110111 1111111101 101010101 11011100 110011111 11011100
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 937
Words 181
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 23
Lines Amount 23
Letters per line (avg) 32
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 734
Words per stanza (avg) 179
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 18, 2023

54 sec read
159

Jean Toomer

Jean Toomer was an American poet and novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. more…

All Jean Toomer poems | Jean Toomer Books

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