The speaker begins by saying he does not doubt God is good and well-meaning. But then he lists things that make that goodness hard to see: a mole born blind, bodies made in God’s image that still die, Tantalus reaching for fruit that slips away, Sisyphus struggling up an endless stair. He admits God’s ways are too mysterious for a small, distracted human mind to question. Then the poem turns personal and sharp. The one “curious thing” he cannot get past is that God made him a Black poet and asked him to sing. The mood is calm on the surface but quietly anguished underneath—full of wonder at both beauty and injustice. That final line is a restrained cry of pain.
Yet Do I Marvel — Summary
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 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 brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!