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 Views
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"Song of the Son" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/21320/song-of-the-son>.
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