“Yet Do I Marvel,” excerpt by the African-American poet, Countee Cullen

“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 some day die, make plain the reason tortured Tantalus is baited by the fickle fruit, declare if merely brute caprice dooms Sysyphus to struggle up a neverending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune to catechism by a mind too strewn with petty cares to slightly understand what awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: to make a poet black and bid him sing!”