Sally's Home (Less-Ness)

Countee Cullen

Ye Do I Marvel...

Poetry by Black Americans

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 someday 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 brains compels His awful hand.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!