For a Virgin
For forty years I shunned the lust Inherent in my clay; Death only was so amorous I let him have his way.
Countee Cullen
For forty years I shunned the lust Inherent in my clay; Death only was so amorous I let him have his way.
Countee Cullen’s “For a Virgin” is a four-line epitaph giving voice to a person who kept their virginity for forty years. The speaker says they refused the physical desire that comes with being human, calling it “the lust / Inherent in my clay.” “Clay” suggests both the body and mortality—the flesh…
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